


Against the Dark

by a_sparrows_fall



Series: Love and Rhetoric [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Anal Sex, Blood Drinking, Break up related angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Edging, Established Relationship, F/F, Flirting, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nilfgaard, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Questionable translation of dead languages, Racism, Road Trips, Threats of Violence, Vampire form sex, Vampires, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:00:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 50,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13342728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sparrows_fall/pseuds/a_sparrows_fall
Summary: A witcher and a vampire traveling together on the road to Nilfgaard.A continuation of the Petrichor ending of "All That's Mine I Carry With Me."(Ratings, warnings, and relationships are for the entire work, not the individual chapters. More character and plot tags to follow.)





	1. Far from home

**Author's Note:**

> Enormous thanks to [Dordean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dordean) and [Kaeltale](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeltale/pseuds/kaeltale) for their incredible beta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The previous work in the series, "I sung you your twinges", takes place a few weeks earlier on the banks of the Sansretour, just south of the mountains that make up the southwest border of Toussaint.

Pim screams.

Momma drops the knife even before Pappa grabs her, her eyes reflecting something like recognition, a quiet knowing anguish that vanishes as suddenly as it had appeared.

Poppa’s strong arms encircle her then, constricting her movement, and Momma howls like a wounded animal, thrashing just as hard as one.

Then Poppa is saying her name, loudly, and that's when Fayenne realizes this is all _happening_.

Rushing to the sideboard, she grabs a scrap of cloth from the top drawer.

Dark crimson snakes from the gash in Pim’s forearm, while his face goes white as milk.

A sick feeling slithers its way up her throat. She fights it back down and covers the cut with the cloth, pressing down hard. Pim shrieks again and tries to rip the limb away from her; it’s all she can do keep him from squirming out of her grip.

The rush of air between her teeth is like a tiny gust of wind, distracting and calming. “ _Shhh_ , _shhh_. You’re okay,” she tells him, because it seems like the sort of thing she should say—the sort of thing Momma would have said, before. She has no idea if it’s true.

“Go get the doctor,” Poppa says, low, leaving a little space between each word.

“What about—?”

“ _Go_ ,” he repeats, and squeezes Momma tighter, even though she’s quieted now, her head lolling forward, both light and focus absent from her eyes.

She guides Pim’s hand to the cloth and squeezes, showing him how to hold it in place before rushing to the door.

They’ve been pretending that Momma was all right. The way Pim plays pretend, the way Fay used to.

There’s no pretending anymore.

The doctor. She has to get the doctor.

* * *

“The doctor isn't in,” the man named Dail tells her, pausing in the midst of raising a barrel. He watches as she pounds on the door to the darkened little shack next to their cooperage a second time. "He's, eh... where'd he go, Albert?”

The balding man with the big nose twists his lips and looks heavenward in thought.

“Think he was headed to Ebbing to see his sister.” 

Fay just glares at them both, standing in front of their workshop, feeling every bit as dense as a length of wood from their supply pile. "I need him _now_."

Dail and Albert stare back.

Birds chirp and the wind blows and everything else is still and Pim is _bleeding_ and she doesn’t have words—why isn’t someone _doing_ something—

“Oh!” Dail sputters suddenly, the impact of a memory returning to him. “There’s a flying barber! New one. Just arrived yesterday. Head up the path through town, and turn left at the dead oak. Can't miss the tent. D’you want me to—hey!”

Before he can offer to walk her there, she’s off, leaving only dust and the sound of her footfalls behind her.

* * *

She doesn’t miss the tent. Or the striped staff placed out front, or the wide basin set beside it, both emblems of the barber’s trade. The bowl is curiously empty, however—typically when she's seen them, they're filled to the brim with a shiny liquid red. The cooper did say they’d only arrived yesterday, however.

She stumbles to a stop just before reaching the part in the tent flap, halted by noises of glass and metal clanking and crashing together emanating from within.

She speaks a fair bit of Common, the language of the Northerners—more than the rest of her family, certainly—but even if she didn’t, she knows what "stop” sounds like in any language when she hears it.

But the protest is followed by a laugh issued in the same dry, warm voice. "Not _now_ ,” it adds, the rebuke light, teasing, and goes on to say something about a "visitor"—that must be her.

The slit in the tent parts before her.

A kindly older man emerges, smiling at her. He wears a red linen shirt, layered over with an apron. Bright green leaves and stalks of fresh herbs poke out from its many pockets.

Wisps of graying fringe poke out from beneath his wide-brimmed straw hat, twisting in all directions, as though he threw it on hastily.

“Hello, my dear,” he says in impeccable Nazairi, voice calm—calmer than it had been a moment ago, anyway. “What can I do for you?”

Fayenne sucks a deep breath in through her nose, lungs struggling after her sprint. The smell of him hits her then, echoing his appearance: crisp, fresh notes of thyme and basil, and a hint of aniseed set further back.

“My—brother, he's—he's been—”

Wiping his hands on his smock, he tips his head up, and she can see his eyes now—strangely, they look almost black in the shadow of the brim of his hat. He raises grey brows as he listens to her attentively.

“—hurt?” he finishes.

She nods, and wonders—with his botanical smell and appearance, not to mention his abyssal gaze—if he mightn’t be more magic man than travelling healer.

But he smiles again, gentle and reassuring, returning her nod, and the thought passes.

“Right,” he says, pulling back the tent’s flap wider. “Come in. I’ll get my things, won’t take a moment.”

Inside the tent, she feels as though she’s stepped into another world, and not an entirely pleasant one. She hardly knows where to look first.

On a makeshift worktop covered in cloth, there’s a panoply of bottles, all sizes and shapes and colors of glass accounted for, some in neat rows and others tipped over, labelled in crisp letters, both familiar and foreign. An unknown substance sits half crushed under a pestle, resting in a stone mortar. Even more herbs hang upside down from the fabric canopy, life leeching away from them slowly.

Near the bottles, poking from pockets sewn into a neat little red velvet roll, the tips of metal implements gleam, twisting into wicked points, like teeth smiling in an unkind mouth.

She trains her gaze away, only to have it land on the sideways death grin of a human skull knocked askew.

Instinctively she turns her head yet again, desperately seeking something of life, and in the opposite corner of the tent, she finds it, as her eyes land on a man.

He had been so still and so completely silent, she somehow missed his presence entirely. She nearly jumps when he moves, bringing his hand to his mouth, noisily crunching into a plum.

It’s silly to be surprised—obviously the doctor had to have been talking to someone when she walked up—but for some reason, she didn’t picture his companion as looking like _this_.

He stands, arms crossed over his broad chest, imposing: his muscular form outlined by the thin cotton of his shirt. His head is tilted down, his chin pointing toward his collarbones. The hat he wears—its brim swooping low, hiding his eyes from her view—is a black Nazairi style cap, but it only serves to make him appear that much more foreign, a cuckoo in a warbler’s nest.

His beard is grey-white, stark as starshine against the seeming youth of his skin. His mouth is… dangerous, somehow. He smiles as he chews; the twist of his lips reminds her of the bend of a cat's tail, the lazy upward arc of it belying a sort of vigilance. There’s something of an animal about him.

And not one that eats plums, either.

He’s distracting and a little frightening and she finds herself unable to look away—until the doctor’s light voice and sharp consonants bring her back to herself.

His thin, quick hands dart across his collection, gathering supplies. “Your brother has suffered a—a burn? A cut?”

“Cut.” Her voice sounds thick, like it doesn’t belong to her.

He places a couple of small bottles in his satchel. “What was he cut by?”

Fayenne opens her mouth, and then shuts it.

How can she say it?

“A knife,” she says at last, not trying to be funny at all.

The doctor looks up at her, expression shifting from irritation to concern as he sees her hesitation.

“Let me put it another way.” He gestures to the man in the corner. “This is my associate, Mister Ossory. He’s my—well—”

He seems to falter at a description of the other man.

“—hired strong,” Mister Ossory says, bending the words around pieces of plum, and it sounds like the earth itself is speaking, so deep is the voice that issues from his mouth; his words are as rough as though they’d been raked over a rocky coastline.

The doctor sighs, back to looking irritated again. “Hired _muscle_ , I think he means. You’ll forgive him, his Nazairi is rusty.”

Mister Ossory grins at that, and she’s not sure why it should be funny: he _does_ look very strong.

The doctor continues, “To the point: is anyone else in danger of being hurt? Does my companion need to come with me? I’m not much of a warrior myself.”

She shakes her head.

“Right. Well.” He closes the flap of his satchel decisively. “Not a moment to waste. Show me the way.”

* * *

It’s all she can do to keep from running as they make their way back to the house, and at moments she’s concerned she might be moving too quickly for the old man. But every time she glances over, he’s there, keeping pace with her.

Words aren’t quite linking together correctly in her head, so she doesn’t speak to him, and he doesn’t try to make conversation with her, either. She can’t see the village around her or the path in front of her as she goes, walking instead through grim images that bleed into one another— _light on the knife, Momma’s face, Pim’s blood, Poppa shouting_ —

When she opens the door for the doctor, Poppa is kneeling next to Pim, holding the cloth she’d retrieved earlier in place; red is permeating the white threads beneath his fingers. Pim doesn’t cry, but his face is pinched, like he could start again at any moment. He sucks difficult breaths through his nose, and whines softly.

Momma is nowhere to be seen.

The doctor raises his voice, but maintains that unflappable calm. “I was told we’ve had a bit of an accident.”

Her father nods several times. “Yes, just an—accident.” 

Opening his pack, the doctor moves toward Pim. “Let’s have a look at this cut, shall we?”

He crouches down, and reaches gently toward Pim’s forearm, holding the cloth in place as her father stands and backs away.

“Hello there.” He smiles at Pim, his voice low and comforting again, just as it was when Fayenne met him outside his tent, and she feels an odd calm settle over her. “I’m Mister Leach. What’s your name?”

The soothing introduction seems to have stilled Pim somewhat, too, his breathing quieter now. But he still looks like he’s scared to open his mouth, lest a howl of pain pour forth from it.

“His name’s Pim,” Fayenne answers for him.

“I’m sorry you’re not having a very nice time of it, Pim,” Mister Leach grimaces in sympathy. “I’ll see what I can do.” He sends a questioning look to Poppa. “Working in the kitchen?”

Poppa doesn’t meet the doctor’s eyes, just bobs his head again, looking a little like a chicken. “I was—I slipped. Clumsy.”

It’s hard to say, since his hat is still casting shadows on his face, but Mister Leach’s eyes look distant for a moment.

“I see.”

He draws the cloth away from Pim’s arm, and Fay finds herself transfixed by the wound in spite of herself. The blood takes longer to swell into a little crimson puddle, no longer pouring forth at the alarming rate it was earlier.

The doctor swivels his head, giving approving glances to both Poppa and Fay. “Excellent work staunching the bleeding, both of you.” He gestures to the rag. “This was a clean cloth? Before?”

Fayenne nods.

“Good.”

He pulls Pim’s injured arm a few inches toward him, and Pim’s eyes go even wider. Pim squeezes the skin just above the wound, below his elbow, with all his might; the white peaks of his knuckles stand out in vivid contrast to the red of the blood seeping from the gash. Fay sees him shift his weight from one foot to the other. He whines.

Mister Leach purses his lips.

“Pim, do you think you could hold your sister’s hand for me...? That’s perfect. Thank you, Miss—?”

“Fayenne.”

“Miss Fayenne.” He tips a bottle of clear liquid over a wad of clean bandages, frowning in solidarity all the while. “Hold on as tight as you like to Fayenne, all right, Pim? This is going to sting, and I’m sorry about that.”

Her fingers are crushed in Pim’s grip as Mister Leach wipes down the wound, the antiseptic smell piercing the air. She can tell Pim is biting down on a squeal, and she feels her own jaw clench and her fist tighten in response, as if she could take on some of the pain herself if she tried hard enough to feel what he was feeling.

Mister Leach speaks rapidly, voice low, presumably to himself; Fayenne doesn’t understand all the words.

“Superficial linear incised wound, not quite down to the fascia. About two inches in length, extensor aspect, mid-right forearm. Smooth edges, bleeding already slowing, though suturing will be required.”

The needle glints in the light as he pulls it from his bag, the eye already trailing a thick black thread, and Fayenne is glad Pim’s eyes are still shut.

“All that to say: I know it hurts—very, very much. But you’ve handled it bravely, and—” he raises both his head and his volume, including Poppa in the conversation once more, “you’ll be absolutely fine. Probably won’t even scar.”

Poppa sighs in relief. Mister Leach smiles a very small smile, looking back at Pim directly, who finally cracks an eye open. “Which may or may not be a disappointment to you. I know some people who are very fond of their scars. Now, Pim,” his voice changes, slipping down in pitch a half step. “ _Look at me._ ”

Pim pries his eyes open, but compensates by squeezing his lips together even tighter.

Something strange happens, then.

Mister Leach stares at Pim. And Pim stares back.

His mouth, his posture, his entire body goes… soft. Slack. He even releases his grip on her hand a fraction.

It scares Fay a little, but she finds she’s unable to say a word.

The doctor starts his work on Pim’s arm, sliding the needle into the flesh, mending it together like Fay herself has mended her toys.

She hadn’t thought that people could be _torn_ before, could be worn out like clothing, and then fixed—not as good as new, maybe, but still…useful. Repaired. It’s creepy, she thinks, but also good to know.

She hopes she doesn't get too torn, doesn’t need to be fixed. But it’s good to know she _could_ be.

Mister Leach must hit a painful spot, because Pim’s eyes get wider, and he trembles, although his body stays that eerie kind of still. Mister Leach stops momentarily and looks in Pim’s eyes again, and—

She does it on instinct, really. Just something she knows to do without her mind having to tell her to do it.

She still can’t speak, but quietly, Fay starts to sing.

It’s a silly song, a counting song, about more and more rabbits sneaking into a farmer’s garden. Something she knows that Pim would know. Something he can hold onto, like her hand.

Mister Leach looks at her. She pauses for a moment, her voice losing the air, squeaking out on a high note.

“Oh, please continue,” he encourages her, his own voice lighter and softer once more. “That’s beautiful. It’s helping Pim tremendously, too. Please, please, go on.”

The first note she starts back into trembles, but she sings on, and Mister Leach works quickly and precisely, and Fay is only up to her fifth rabbit when Mister Leach says, “All done.”

He rocks backward in his crouch, making a little distance between himself and her brother. Pim blinks several times. Fay squeezes his hand again, and he seems to… come back to himself.

“That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

Pim’s little head twists back and forth, but the pallor of his cheeks seems to betray his response. Still, Fay thinks, pretending to be brave counts for something, doesn’t it? 

It’s all quick and precise after that: Mister Leach winds the bandages around Pim’s arm as he instructs both Fay and her father on what to do for the next few days, and gives them an ointment to apply.

“Your normal surgeon can remove the stitches in two weeks. And I’ll be back myself in a few days to check on our patient.”

Poppa releases a breath, and it sounds like all his worries are escaping with it. “I can’t thank you enough, sir. Please, what do we owe you?”

“Oh,” Mister Leach raises a hand, “I don’t actually need much in the way of coin at the moment. But any food you’d be willing to share wouldn’t go amiss. A hen, perhaps? I saw some lovely specimens in front of the house—”

“Yes,” Poppa agrees eagerly, “Yes, I just butchered a few earlier, just before I—” he gestures to Pim awkwardly. Fay winces.

Poppa goes to get the hen, and Mister Leach kneels down again—he moves so much more easily than the other old men in her village—setting his crossed arms over his knee.

“Thank you, Miss Fayenne. You were an immense help to me. I don’t know where your greater talents lie: as a songstress, or as a surgical assistant. But I predict that extraordinary things await you in either case.”

He stands again, and exchanges a few more words with Poppa. Fayenne doesn’t hear everything he says. She’s too busy asking Pim if it hurts.

“A little,” he tells her, which she knows means _a lot_. She’s very proud of him.

When the door shuts behind the doctor, she runs up to her father.

“Where’s Momma?!” Fay nearly shouts.

“ _Hush_ ,” Poppa scolds her, eyes flicking to the door, and then toward the barn beside the house.

The _barn_? Momma is in the _barn_?

“I’ll go get her!” she calls out.

“ _No_ ,” Poppa says, his voice low and hard. It stops her in her tracks.

“But—”

“Help me with dinner,” he says in that same tone, the one that says exactly how much trouble she’ll be in if she disobeys, clearer than the words of any of her counting songs.

Poppa turns away, and she casts a frantic glance at Pim, who just frowns and trembles more, trying not to paw at his bandages.

They can’t leave Momma out there. They just _can’t_.

Fay blinks, and then slowly walks toward the kitchen.

She can’t get her out now.

But someone else could.

* * *

“Something wasn’t entirely right.”

She breathes as quietly as she can, not moving a muscle; the slightest rustle of the grass will not only give her away, but will make it much harder to hear their words, and she needs to hear it all as clearly as she can, to try and make sense of the odd rhythms and slippery sounds of the Common tongue.

She snuck out less than a quarter hour after Poppa had sent her to bed. He had always been a sound sleeper. Pim was usually less so, but he was worn out from the day’s events, sliding into stillness and soft breaths beside her in no time.

Using the big heavy door was too risky; it always squeaked when it opened. The window made it much easier for her to slip out in silence.

Her feet remembered the way to the tent, and she navigated the darkness easily, not missing her destination even with the barber’s staff taken down for the day.

She had seen what Mister Leach had done for Pim—or no, that wasn’t quite true. She didn’t know _what_ he did, not really. But she’d seen the effect: the doctor had calmed him down to put the stitches in, stopped him from crying out. Poppa hadn’t seemed to notice—he had been too worried, too much in his own head—but Fay did.

He could probably do the same thing for Momma. She wasn’t sure if he could _mend_ her, exactly—brains almost certainly needed more than sewing to be fixed—but at least she’d be calm.

Getting into the barn would be a problem; she doesn’t have the key, and couldn’t imagine the slight, gentle barber being able to force his way into the building.

But then she remembered his friend, the… what had he said? Hired muscle? Muscle was just what was needed.

She nearly burst right into the tent upon arriving, but stopped herself just as she had earlier, their foreign words catching her ear again. It sounded like Mister Leach was telling his companion about his day, and that meant he was talking about her and Pim.

Crouching beside the tent, her body tucked up in a little ball, she listens.

A shadow cast up onto the cloth moves in time with slow footsteps: someone pacing. Mister Ossory, she thinks, remembering the bigger man’s name.

“Imagine anyone would be shaken up by an accident like that. Ciri nicked herself something awful the first time she used a real blade, and I think I took it worse than she did.”

“It wasn’t that,” Mister Leach corrects him promptly. “Not just that. The father was extraordinarily tall, and favored his left side: probably left-handed. I don’t think he could have even made that cut. Not with that placement. Not unless it was on purpose.”

Fayenne feels her heart speed up: they know her and Poppa had lied. She has to tell them now, otherwise they’ll think Poppa did something awful on purpose, and—

“And when I was leaving, I heard—well...” Mister Leach breaks off, and everything in the tent goes very, very quiet. When he speaks again, a shudder rakes through her at the sound: she’s not sure where his voice is coming from anymore.

“I suppose we could just ask someone who was there...”

The side panel of the tent is pulled up before her suddenly, revealing Mister Ossory, his eyes still covered by his cap, pulled low across his face even in the dark.

She stumbles backward, only making it a handful of steps before she smacks into something.

She looks up to see Mister Leach, staring down at her, grinning close-mouthed.

“...Couldn’t we?”

* * *

Mister Ossory has two swords. They each have a different intricate handle, and he wears them on his back, over top of fine armor, the like of which Fay has never seen before: a short jacket with a sleek stripes of mail set into sturdy leather. She doesn’t know the first thing about fighting, but even she can see it’s meant to both move and protect at once, to be both durable and flexible.

(Mister Leach was very surly with him when he’d started to put it on. “I very much doubt you’ll need any of that to accompany me to see about a—” he looked at Fay, then back at Mister Ossory, “a woman in some distress.”

Mister Ossory just shrugged and kept buckling his weapons into place.

“You never know,” he offered easily, pulling a hood up over his head before removing his black cap. Mister Leach just sighed. Fay got the impression he did that a lot.)

The three of them stand outside the barn door now, and maybe it’s silly, but simmering just below her worry about her mother, Fay feels a quiver of excitement at the thought of Mister Ossory having to smash through the door with one of those huge swords. Her father will be mad about that when he wakes up, but, well, he shouldn’t have put Momma in the barn like livestock.

However, it’s Mister Leach who approaches the locked structure.

“If you don’t mind,” he says to his friend, and then nods—at _her_.

Before she can think, _mind what?_ , leather gloves descend over her eyes, covering them completely. She yelps and tries to shove them away, or at least to pry the fingers apart, to see what that strange sound she hears is, but the bodyguard’s hands are too strong for hers.

“Nope,” Mister Ossory says placidly, not letting his grip be budged in the slightest. “Nice try, though.”

The barn door creaks open, and she finally shoves his hands aside, to see Mister Leach standing in the open doorway, both his posture and manner tranquil. He gestures for them to enter.

Do they think she’s some delicate flower just because she lives in a boring town in Nazair? Do they think she’s never heard of crime, of bandits, just because she’s not from the North? She’s _nine_ , for the Sun’s sake. She even traveled to see the Golden Towers once. She’s not a baby.

“I _know_ what lock picking is,” she huffs at both of them, going so far as to say it in Common to emphasize the point. She stomps past the doctor, a rough laugh echoing behind her from Mister Ossory.

A soft whine comes from the far end of the barn, and she picks out the dim shape of a seated figure.

All her irritation melts away as she breaks into a run.

“Momma!”

She goes to embrace her mother, and freezes.

A length of rope binds Momma's wrists to one another and her ankles to the feet of the old wooden chair she’s in. Fayenne feels her throat tighten to the point of pain, and begins to yank clumsily at the knots. Momma barely moves, doesn’t even look up. This is _wrong_ , she shouldn't _be_ _here—_

“Okay, okay, let me—”

Having caught up to her, Mister Ossory pushes her aside gently, and, kneeling, retrieves an enormous hunting knife, slicing the bonds from Momma’s wrists before Fay has time to gasp.

Momma’s arms just fall to her sides, and Fayenne feels tears forming. This is the worst Momma’s ever been. Why won’t she come back?

“Let me see her, my dear child.”

Mister Leach begins to check her over, looking in her eyes, measuring the speed of her heartbeat and her breathing. Fay doesn’t know how he can see in this darkness. Maybe Momma’s condition is so bad he doesn’t need to see. Fay wants to be sick.

“Physically healthy,” he notes aloud, continuing in Nazairi. “But unresponsive. Insofar as I can assess, no exterior signs of disease or injury… Oh.” He notices her wrist, then, and rolls up one sleeve, eyeing the markings he finds there, and then following suit with the other.

Fay probably should have mentioned that straight away, shouldn’t she have? Stupid, stupid, she didn’t think—

“This scarring,” the doctor gestures to Momma’s forearms. “I’m so sorry to ask this, but did your mother do this to herself?”

Fay nods, fearing she won’t be able to get the words out. This is a lot harder than she thought it would be.

“I see.” He completes his examination, then crouches down before her, like he did when he told Pim that the stitches would hurt; she knows now that whatever he’s about to say is going to hurt, too.

“I am so sorry, Fayenne.” He places a hand on her shoulder. She manages not to jump at his touch. “I don’t know that there’s much we can do for her.”

“You’re not…” She stops herself; it’s too silly.

“Not what?” Mister Leach asks very softly, dark eyes fixed on her, lips slightly parted, looking hesitant.

“...a magic man?” she squeaks at last.

He shakes his head. “No, sadly. Not in the way you mean, at any rate. I’m terribly sorry.”

The corners of his mouth twist downward, and he spreads his arms cautiously, an offer, not a demand. She falls into them before she can even consider how much she trusts this man, thinking only that she needs to hide the tears suddenly streaking over her cheeks in the folds of his shawl.

Some seconds pass, her hiccuping sobs too loud in her ears. She manages to stop them and pull away from the doctor slightly, the barn having gone silent. She only notices Mister Ossory had been pacing when he stops and turns to them.

“Is there anything we can do for the rest of family?”

She feels Mister Leach shift slightly, like maybe he’s frowning. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

Mister Ossory shrugs. “Not sure. But if she was...coherent... I doubt she’d be happy if her children were harmed, whatever the reason.”

The doctor’s expression deepens into a scowl as he releases her from his embrace, and his eyes again dart between Fay and his bodyguard. After an extended pause, he responds, voice low and rough, words quick, like maybe he hopes Fay won’t hear.

“Any place that would have her is not a place her family would want her to reside. In Nilfgaard proper or Oxenfurt, perhaps someone with the requisite knowledge might take an interest in her case. But not here.” He sighs as he addresses her. “Miss Fayenne, it’s probably best if you—”

“Your mother hasn’t always been like this,” Mister Ossory cuts the barber-surgeon off. “Did something happen to her?”

She works her mouth silently for a moment, gauging the mood between the two of them. Mister Leach looks grumpy, like he’s not used to being either contradicted or interrupted. Mister Ossory doesn’t look like he cares about that at all, just stands in a fixed position, arms crossed over his chest. His hood still covers his eyes, but she can tell he’s staring at her.

“No,” Fay explains at last. “She wasn’t hurt or nothing, if that’s what you mean. I think she just… got sad when her friend left. But she’s more than sad now. I know that.”

The bodyguard tips his head to the side, like he’d heard something he hadn’t expected.

“Her friend?”

Fay nods. “He was a hunter. Mister Specht. He was here about…” She looks up, going back to that time in her mind. “...a year after Pim was born.” It had been autumn, the time for hunting grouse and other fowl.

Mister Ossory makes a hand movement as if to say, _go on_.

“I... don’t remember him too much. But he made Momma laugh,” she sniffles, promising herself that she won’t start crying again. “They spent a lot of time together, before he went away. And she was sick for a little while after that.”

“Sick?” Mister Leach asks, now looking as drawn in as Mister Ossory.

“Mostly in the morning, like,” Fay explains. “And then she went to the doctor—but I don’t think he was as good a doctor as you, Mister Leach, because she was horribly ill even _after_ that. And that was when she got sad. And then she—it was like she went away, too. But only… in her eyes, you know?”

She feels her voice going tight and reedy again, and she hates it, hates how it sounds, like it’s about to snap, but she can’t stop talking, the words just rush out, faster and faster. “I saw her going further and further—and I tried everything to get her back, but she’s never really _been_ back—and she—”

It’s Mister Ossory who crouches down to her this time.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He reaches for her, but stops, his hands hanging trepidatiously above her shoulders, like hummingbirds, never coming down to land. “I think I might be able to help your mother, all right?”

Mister Leach sputters, like he can’t believe what he’s just heard.

“ _What?_ What do you mean to—?”

The doctor grabs the bodyguard by his armor at the shoulder, and drags him to the center of the barn. He speaks in Common, then, fast and angry; Fayenne doesn’t look at them, but listens in, trying to catch it all.

“Stop it. The girl doesn’t need false hope.”

“I’m not—”

The doctor drops his volume even further. Fayenne wanders closer, trying to make it look like her steps are idle ones, but ultimately it seems like it doesn’t matter how careful she is: Mister Leach is focused entirely on his friend, not paying any heed to her at all.

“A loss like this one can be… devastating. Shame, remorse: these are demons of the mind. As much as I would love to, there is nothing you nor I can do to relieve her of them. Not every foe is one you can swing a sword at. Believe me, I _wish_ you could.”

“ _Regis—_ ”

The bigger man’s voice sounds… hurt, or strained, sort of, when he says what must be the doctor’s given name. Like maybe they’re talking about more than her family now.

“There is nothing we can do for her,” Mister Leach insists. “Her, or her mother. Leading the girl on… Frankly, it’s cruel. I’m surprised at you.”

Mister Ossory nods once, then turns, walking in a slow arc away from him and back toward Momma. He circles behind her chair, staring down at her, observing. Momma gives a low moan, like something is disturbing her. Fayenne takes a step and then stops as Mister Ossory looks at both her and his companion.

“And I’m surprised at _you_ , Mister Leach,” he says loudly, his Nazairi slow and clumsy as before. He must mean for Fay to hear it. Mister Leach’s mouth hangs slightly open in shock, clearly as confused as she is.

“You missed something about your patient,” Mister Ossory continues. “Understandable, because I’ve missed it before myself. But,” he grins that same grin she saw before in the tent, smug and a little bit feral, “just the once. I learned my lesson after that.”

He finishes his wandering, standing off to Momma’s right side. Momma whines, and Fay starts to move to her again. Mister Ossory puts up a hand.

“You might wanna take a step back,” he advises, reaching into the satchel fastened to his belt.

Reluctantly, she does as she’s told.

He pulls out a torch, and holds it in front of her mother. Using his other hand, he gestures, quick and clean, moving his fingers in some odd pattern she doesn’t quite catch. But it clearly has significance, as the end of the torch bursts into flame.

Fayenne gasps and blinks. Her mind spins, and she doesn’t know what’s causing it to whirl about more: the spell itself, the brightness of flame, or the fact that it’s Mister _Ossory_ and not Mister Leach who is apparently a wizard. She never would have guessed—why didn’t he just say so at the start?

But the reluctant wizard gestures at the back wall of the barn, then, and her eyes go even _wider_.

She expects to see an enlarged silhouette of her mother cast on the wooden planks, moving in time with the woman’s shallow breathing and occasional shudders.

That’s not what she sees at all.

An enormous, lean shape looms, spikes protruding from its frame, its arms ending in long deadly claws, twisted horns crowning its pointed head. The outline trails back down to the chair her mother is in, being cast by—gods—it’s coming from _Momma—_

Slits appear in the dark shape where the nightmare creature’s face should be, and somehow she knows that its eyes are open now, open and fixed on _her_ —

She’s mesmerized until Mister Ossory speaks, tearing her away from the clutches of her fear.

“The shadow, Mister Leach,” he explains calmly. “You’ve got to check the shadow.”

Fay screams.

Mister Ossory puts out the torch with another gesture. Mister Leach falls to one knee at her side with surprising speed, shushing her and assuring her that everything is all right.

The probably-not-really-a-bodyguard-at-all curses in Common under his breath, and walks past them both to the barn door, swinging it open. Moments later, Fayenne sees Poppa framed in the doorway, practically slipping as he tries to stop from a full sprint. Pim is rushing after him, looking terrified.

“What in the nine hells is going on? What are you doing to my wife? She—Fayenne? The _hell_ —?”

Poppa storms in and spots Mister Leach, recognizing him from earlier, but Mister Ossory immediately blocks his path. Poppa is tall, even a few inches taller than Mister Ossory, but the latter is… well… ‘hired strong,’ after all. He restrains Poppa, and makes it look he’s hardly expending any effort in doing so.

“ _You!_ What do you want? Get the ploughing hell away from her.”

“We’re here to help—” Mister Leach tries to placate him.

“Get _away_ ,” Poppa yells, struggling against Mister Ossory’s grip on him. “We don’t _need_ your help! We don’t need any more bleeding doctors!”

Mister Ossory gives him a little shove, clearly not intended to harm him, just to jostle him into listening. Poppa stumbles backward.

“You’re right, actually,” Mister Ossory agrees. “Your wife _doesn’t_ need a doctor.”

He throws back his hood suddenly, and for the first time, Fayenne can see his whole face.

His hair, tied back at the base of his neck, is long and as bright white as his beard, if not brighter. His bared teeth glisten, too.

But the brightest things about him by far are his eyes: they shine even in the dark of the barn, wide and round and orange-yellow, more vivid than a low slung harvest moon.

He fishes for a moment in his cowl, and pulls out an object that had been concealed in the fabric’s folds: a silvery medallion, hanging from a chain around his neck. He stretches the chain taut, presenting the amulet to her father.

Her father just _stares_ , saying nothing at all, and finally Mister Ossory speaks again.

“She needs _me_.”

* * *

Fay is sure, absolutely sure, that all three of them—her father, the doctor, and the… the _witcher_ , she thinks, hardly able to wrap her head around the idea of a witcher existing in real life, let alone being here with her in Nazair—are going to send her away, off to her bed to hide under the covers until the killing of the shadow monster is over.

That wouldn’t be fair, not at all. If it weren’t for her, they wouldn’t even know the thing existed.

But it’s the witcher, actually, who intercedes on her behalf before she even says a word.

They’re all of them standing just beyond the barn door, except for Mister Leach, who is inside tending to Momma, keeping her calm.

“Look,” Mister Ossory says to Poppa, blunt as ever. “I don’t mean to tell you how to raise your daughter. But I’m pretty sure she’s cut from the same cloth as this other young girl I knew. If you send her to bed, she’s just gonna sneak out anyway.” He shrugs. “Might as well let her watch through the peephole in the side of the barn. You can, too, if you want,” he adds as an afterthought.

Poppa stares vacantly, like he still can’t quite get past the idea that there’s _a creature trapped inside his wife_ and it’s been there for _years_.

“Can all this… wait until morning?” he asks, his voice ragged.

“ _No_ ,” Fayenne shouts before the witcher can even answer. Momma is not going to suffer for one more second than she has to, not if Fay has anything to say about it. But she’s gratified that the witcher seems to agree with her again.

“Hym’s more active at night, not to mention your wife’s been through a lot already. The sooner we kill it, the better off she’ll be. Hopefully your neighbors will understand about the noise.”

Witchers, Fayenne decides, are just as neat in real life as in the stories.

“Can I touch your sword?” Fay asks hopefully as Mister Ossory guides her to the tiny hole in one of slats making up the barn wall.

He shakes his head. “I need Reg—Mister Leach to help me right now, and he can’t do that if you cut yourself and he has to stitch _you_ up, too.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes it gently, finally making contact with her, then waves the thumb of his other hand in the direction of the peephole. “Don’t make a sound, okay? Not one. No matter what happens. You got it?”

She bobs her head up and down, fast, like a woodpecker.

“Good. And don’t come back in the barn until I say so.”

She promises she won’t, and the witcher goes inside to prepare.

Pim calls out to Poppa; she turns to see that her father hasn’t stopped pacing, and Pim is running behind him, terrified and trying to attach himself to one of Poppa’s legs.

“ _Poppa_ ,” she reassures. “It will be _fine_. The witcher and the magic barber said so, okay?”

Her father mutters to himself again—more prayers, she thinks—and keeps on walking. She waves Pim over to her.

“Sit by me,” she urges him, seeing how hard he’s trembling. “You don’t have to watch.”

He does, and she places her eye back over the peephole, hoping she hasn’t missed much of what’s going on inside. She focuses, tuning out her father’s mumbling and the whistle of soft night breezes, trying to take in every foreign word as best she can. 

“—like this?” Mister Leach is asking, setting a torch into a sconce on one of the barn’s walls.

“Yep,” Mister Ossory confirms, placing one of the torches himself. “Just… evenly spaced around the barn.”

They continue their work, each additional torch brightening the barn interior until Fay can see the details of the witcher’s armor that she couldn’t before; it’s even prettier than she had thought.

Mister Leach pauses, holding the last unlit torch, and crosses back to Mister Ossory. He walks slowly, fidgeting all the while, which is something she hasn’t seen him do before.

“A hym is—if I’m remembering this rightly—a creature that can only establish itself within a host that bears an immense amount of guilt over some past wrongdoing, feeding off their despair.”

Mister Ossory is comparing two bottles of dark liquid he’s pulled from his hip pack, eventually uncorking and then downing one. He winces as he swallows. “Got it right so far,” he answers, his already deep voice sounding practically burnt out.

“I’m—I can’t help but feel that _I_ might be—”

Mister Ossory looks up, then, observing Mister Leech, who grips the unlit torch with both hands, staring past it at the ground.

The witcher’s face contorts first in confusion, then concern. He shakes his head after a moment’s thought. “No. Don’t think you’d be… Think the physiognomy’s too different. The way the hym lodges in the brain… I don’t think it would work on you.”

“Are you certain?” Mister Leach asks, looking up at Mister Ossory beseechingly. “Because I can go, if it would be easier. I... don’t want to exacerbate the problem.”

He drops his head down again, looking not simply nervous now, but… lost. Distant. Filled with sorrow.

It’s the way Momma looked right after her friend went away.

Maybe Mister Leach lost a friend, too.

Faster than lightning, the witcher is in front of the doctor—actually, more than in front of him: they’re standing nearly chest to chest. Mister Ossory wrests one of Mister’s Leach’s hands from the torch and takes it in both of his.

“Hey, cut it out,” he says softly.

He draws Mister Leach’s hand up and tucks it beneath his bearded jaw, pressing the doctor’s fingers carefully into the skin of his neck. Fay mimics the motion unconsciously, and feels the soft thrum of her pulse under her own fingers.

“Stop threatening to leave, all right?” Mister Ossory whispers, gruff but somehow gentle, too. “I didn’t like the idea much the last time, either.”

She doesn’t really understand what she’s seeing, what just passed between the two men, but whatever it was, it seems to have calmed Mister Leach down some. He takes a deep breath and nods, letting his head fall forward, his forehead pressed to the witcher’s.

Momma used to do that with her and Pim sometimes when they were afraid. (She feels a little flutter of hope in her chest for the first time in a very long time, realizing that she might be able to do it again.)

Fay draws back for a second, looking behind her, feeling like perhaps she shouldn’t be watching this part of the… preparations.

Poppa’s stopped pacing, but his fingers nervously drum against his crossed arms. Pim is curled up beside her, eyes shut tight. Both are oblivious to what’s transpiring in the barn.

Whatever’s going on, it’s pretty clear that Mister Leech and Mister Ossory are closer than ‘associates.’

She looks back inside when she hears the witcher beginning to talk at full volume again.

“Besides, I need you. This will go a lot smoother if you can be in charge of Moon Dust and restraining _her_.” Fay assumes he means Momma. “I usually have to use _Axii_ , do it all myself, but if you don’t mind using your… way with people...”

He’s on the opposite side of the barn from his friend, drawing one of his swords out and wiping down the blade with a cloth coated in some sort of oil. Mister Leach, seemingly restored to his former self, is holding the final torch, now lit, and moving beyond the bounds of the ring of light formed by the other five. Momma, still seated in her chair, is at the edge of the barn as well, groaning softly.

It’s the strangest thing—Fay squints and blinks, eyes straining against the bright burning points of light—but the position of the torches is such that it _almost_ looks like the barber has no shadow at all. It must have something to do with the ritual for fighting the monster, she decides.

“I’ll do my utmost,” Mister Leech promises, holding up the torch near its intended spot on the barn wall. “As Dandelion would say—”

Mister Ossory barks a laugh as he tosses the cloth aside.

“—‘help, help, please don’t let it get me’?” he finishes in mocking tones.

He gracefully brandishes his sword in a tightly controlled circle with little more than a flick of his wrist. He brandishes a smile, too: the savage one Fay’s observed a few times now.

Suddenly, she realizes what that smile means. Or, not what it means, exactly, but why Mister Ossory does it.

That smile is for— _belongs to_ —Mister Leach.

Mister Leach returns the grin, then shrugs and deposits the final torch into its sconce, completing the circle.

“Mmm, something like that,” he says.

* * *

The witcher’s fight with the shadow monster is both excruciatingly long and over far too soon.

The creature’s shape is similar to what she had seen outlined on the barn wall, but moving around in space, it’s faster, louder, and taller than it had appeared before, slashing at the witcher and missing by mere inches.

It can change into a puff of smoke at will, too—or at least, it can until Mister Ossory signals for Mister Leach to release a bomb. Fay yanks herself away from the barn wall as he tosses it, expecting flames and an explosion to follow.

But what actually bursts forth from the little thrown capsule is a beautiful shower of silver shards, glittering as they waft to the ground.

The monster shrieks, unable to dissipate into mist after that.

It’s a physical fight then, claws and strength versus cunning and a deadly sharp blade. The witcher dives and dodges, getting behind the creature whenever possible to lay into its vulnerable back and legs.

Her breath hitches when Momma starts screaming at the top of her lungs, and Mister Leach—apparently having been entranced by the fight, as well—turns back to her, settling her back down with his calming stare.

Mister Ossory darts under the swipe of its massive arm, and, pirouetting, the sword twirling in the air above his head, he brings it down into the monster’s back, hacking into it fiercely; it falls to the ground, wailing and shaking.

At the same moment, Momma falls forward in her seat, Mister Leach rushing forward to catch her.

Mister Ossory stills, regaining his breath, and then looks up in the direction of her hiding spot, deliberately catching her eye and nodding.

Tearing around the side of the barn and through its doors, Fayenne makes a beeline to her mother, who is still being cradled by Mister Leach, looking dazed and breathing heavily.

“ _Momma_ ,” Fayenne grabs at her arms. Momma flinches and tries to wriggle away, closing her eyes like Fayenne is a bright light she can’t bear to look at.

Is… Is she not… fixed after all?

“Easy now, my dear: she’s been through a lot,” Mister Leach reassures her before she can even ask. Pim and Poppa appear at her side as he continues explaining. “My companion says this is one of the more dire cases he’s seen, and it might take a day or two for her to return to herself. But she should be fine. She just needs time and rest.”

Fay nods. She can be patient. She can be. She’s admittedly not very good at it, but she’ll try, anyway. For Momma, she can try.

She strokes the fabric of Momma’s skirt soothingly as Mister Leach makes a few more checks. He steps away, letting Poppa move in closer to look after Momma.

“Excuse me,” Mister Leach nods politely, shuffling back from the little cluster of family members. “I have to speak with my—”

Fay looks at her father, whose attention is completely taken up by his newly-restored wife, and Pim, who is hugging Momma at the knees, before looking back at the doctor.

“ _Your…_?” she asks quietly, her voice turning up like the corners of her mouth, trying to draw him on to complete the sentence with a different word than he’s used before.

“Mmm.” He gives her a look that wants desperately to be a scowl, but has far too much smile left in it. “ _Quite_ ,” he agrees, winking and turning away.

She turns back to Momma, sliding under Momma’s arm, pressing against her side warmly. Momma looks at her now, recognition not fully returned to her, but something close to it having chased away the fear.

Fay closes her eyes and listens with one ear to the witcher and the barber talking to each other—something about collecting samples, plus a long strange word she’s never heard before that doesn’t sound like Common _or_ Nazairi—and lets the other ear take in the sounds of her mother’s heartbeat and breathing, steadier and stronger than she can remember them sounding in years.

Voices and footsteps echo outside the barn. The neighbors must have heard the commotion. Poppa stands and goes to meet them.

She loses track of time, curled up next to her mother; the warmth and the stillness are beginning to lull Fay to sleep, the adrenaline from the evening’s excitement starting to leave her.

Mister Leach’s voice catches her attention again before she drifts off completely, and she sneaks another glance in their direction.

“I must say,” the doctor admits to his friend, sounding elated, “that was… _fun_. Bracing. I enjoyed that.” He gasps suddenly. “Am I a witcher now? Or an apprentice, at least? Do I get a medallion?”

“It takes a _little_ more than that,” Mister Ossory grouses.

“Will I be helping you with all your contracts now?” The doctor steps closer to Mister Ossory, grinning. “Can _I_ touch your sword?” he asks, his voice a low whisper. He sounds at _least_ as excited about it as Fayenne did, which puzzles her, because he certainly must have done it before. “If you need help with, say, a blade oil—” 

“ _Regis_ ,” the witcher hisses at him through clenched teeth. “Think I liked it better when you were a complete prude.”

“You’re deliberately misremembering, I was _hardly_ a—”

The conversation grinds to a halt as Poppa returns, walking up to them with his hat in his hands, probably to discuss payment for the witcher’s services. Fayenne pouts. She had really wanted to find out just what a ‘prude’ was.

“How can I—I can’t possibly repay—” Poppa begins.

“Please, think nothing of it,” the barber says, waving off the idea of payment with a flick of his hand. Mister Ossory gives him a look, but says nothing. Mister Leach continues, smiling. “Go, be with your family. All of them. I’ll be back to check on—”

“Mila,” Poppa says, glancing over at her and Pim and Momma, and his voice cracks when he says Momma’s name.

“—Mila and Pim in a few days.”

The men shake Poppa’s hand and head toward the door. Fayenne wants to say goodbye to them, but she’d rather not let go of Momma, and she’ll see them again soon, anyway.

(“ _That_ ,” she catches Mister Ossory grumbling at his friend as they leave, “is why you can’t be a witcher. Because we would starve.”)

Suddenly, Fay feels arms squeezing her back, and nearly jumps out of her skin. She pulls away just enough to look up, and—

“...Fayenne?” Momma says cautiously, like she can hardly believe her eyes. “Pim?”

Hot tears stream over Fay’s cheeks for a second time tonight, but she doesn’t try hide them this time.

She doesn’t care what Mister Leach said. He _is_ a magic man. Him and the witcher, both.

* * *

It’s Dail, the cooper, that tells her he saw the witcher and the barber-surgeon packing their things.

She runs all the way to their tent in order to make sure she can give them her presents before they leave.

Breathlessly, she remembers how much running she did the day she first laid eyes on them, and can barely believe it's only been a week since then. So much has changed.

The tent is packed away, its canopy and posts wrapped up tightly and attached to the saddle of Mister Leach’s mule. Mister Ossory is stuffing a few small parcels wrapped in cloth into his own saddlebags when she runs up, her hands behind her back, concealing her surprises.

Mister Leach is wearing his old straw hat. Mister Ossory isn’t wearing a hat or his hood, but he does have his armor on, swords already in their sheathes.

“Miss Fayenne,” the barber says brightly. “What a pleasant surprise—what are you—”

She thrusts the duckcloth sack forward first; it’s just food and drink and a few odds and ends from their house.

“This is from everyone—me, and Momma and Poppa and Pim—”

Before Mister Ossory can even look inside, she pulls her other hand from behind her back, revealing her gift, the one she went down the lakeside to get. Her legs are covered in insect bites and scratches from tromping through the brush to reach the best one, and her hands got pricked by what must have been a hundred thorns, but it was worth it.

“—and this is from me,” she says.

She holds it up gently between her thumb and forefinger: one of the famous blue roses of Nazair. This one is a special variant with the faintest trace of purple at the tips of its petals, like it’s being kissed by nightfall. It’s in full bloom, the dew on it reflecting the midday sun brilliantly.

Mister Leach’s brows leap up, and his mouth drops open.

“ _Oh_ ,” he breathes.

At first, she thinks he’s just surprised. People who haven’t been to Nazair aren’t used to roses having such an unusual shade. He’s probably never seen one before.

But as the moment drags on—with Mister Leach saying nothing further, standing there, unmoving save for his eyes getting fractionally wider and shinier—she begins to realize he has _definitely_ seen one like this before.

And it’s making him sad.

Just as she’s about to jerk her arm back and apologize, Mister Ossory takes the flower from her hand.

“I’ll take that,” he says gently. He smiles at her—not the wicked one that belongs to Mister Leach, just a kind one. “It’s beautiful.”

The movement seems to break Mister Leach out of his trance.

“Yes, yes, truly. It’s lovely, my dear,” he agrees. He nods at his companion. “Thank you, Geralt.”

Wait… _what_ did he just say?

“Are all witchers called that?” Fay asks, barely able to contain her excitement. “Geralt?”

Mister Ossory—Geralt—narrows his eyes at her. “What makes you say that?”

Can they really not know? Is the story not told yet in the North?

“Because,” she squeals, “that was the name of the Witcher who fought alongside the Witcheress at Rhys-Rhun castle! _Everybody_ knows that!”

She’s thrilled beyond words to be able to show off her knowledge for them. (All right: so she _herself_ didn’t even know a week ago that you could tell a witcher by the fact that they carried two swords. She doesn’t mention that part.)

The point is, it’s pretty much the only interesting thing that’s ever happened in Nazair. At least, it was, until _this_ witcher came through and fixed Fay’s whole world.

Mister Leach darts a confused glance at Mister Ossory. “Rhys-Rhun? What does…?” he trails off.

Meanwhile, Mister Ossory is shaking his head. “ _Philippa_ ,” he chuckles darkly, saying the name the exact same way Poppa says curse words.

She looks up at both of them for a moment, not sure what to say, then, impulsively, throws her arms open wide and smiles, waiting.

Mister Ossory is the first to kneel.

“Good luck on the… the Road,” she whispers. “That’s what you say, isn’t it? To witchers?”

“Yeah, you got it,” he agrees, hugging her close.

Mister Leach wraps her up in his arms, and she breathes in the herby fragrance of him one last time. “Take care, little songbird,” he says warmly.

She begins her walk back home, moving extra slowly, so she can hear as much as possible of their conversation before she’s out of earshot.

“I _told_ you it was safer to assume pseudonyms,” Mister Leach is saying. “You thought me mad.”

“I still think you’re mad. Just… maybe not for that reason.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“Who exactly,” she hears the witcher press him, “do you think is looking for us?”

She can barely hear the doctor’s reply before she passes the dead oak, turning back onto the main road to the village. “You never know.”

She hopes it’s not too long before they come back this way again.

* * *

 

Gods, he’s hungry.

Dijkstra chucks his quill at the latest pile of reports from his informants, its inked tip skittering a black line over the first page of nothing, nothing and more nothing.

Leaning back in his chair, he scrubs both hands over his face and exhales.

In the quiet that follows, a sound echoes in the hallway: the unmistakable, uneven _shuffle-clomp_ of his most trusted go-between’s limp, growing closer, louder.

Maybe _he’ll_ have something interesting to say.

He hears Anders drag his misshapen form through the door frame and stop. Dijkstra lets his hands continue to rest covering his eyes; he’d prefer to live in hope for just a few seconds longer.

“Please tell me,” he rasps between his palms, “you’ve ploughing got news for me. Or at least a fucking sandwich. I can’t even say which’d be more valuable to me at the moment.”

He looks up finally, and Anders just stands there, wringing his hands, frowning. His rumpled coils of black hair are matted and dirty, matching the state of his clothes. He must have been ‘begging’ outside that brothel just north of Oxenfurt, the one General Kamen was known to frequent—not a bad idea, all in all.

The deformed skin flap drooping over the informant’s right eye always makes his expressions a little harder to read than most, but at a glance, it doesn't look like his gambit panned out.

And he sure as shit hasn’t brought Dijkstra anything to eat, either.

It’s a sad fucking day when Anders—trusty, reliable Anders, the cripple no one ever notices, the man who in the past three years has gotten more information from the Redanian court than rest of his spy network put together—comes to him empty-handed.

Dijkstra stands, pushes away from the desk and stalks around it, pacing to the middle of his study, facing away from Anders.

“N-n-n-no s-s-sightings, milord. But there’s a rumor he’ll be in Oxenfurt harbor ag-g-gain within the month.”

No _sightings?_ Not even a public appearance at some execution or other?

So the little shit was still holed up in Tretogor for the time being. Dijkstra hadn’t realized that when Radovid had pulled His Majesty’s Ship Oxenfurt-Tretogor back to its home port that that would be the last the former spymaster would see of it for months on end.

Fucking Radovid. The crazy fucker had smelled something nasty on the wind, and tucked his bits in accordingly. Dijkstra couldn’t even say if it was his men who’d fucked up and given Radovid a hint of trouble being afoot, or Emhyr’s.

The imprecision of this latest bit of information isn’t doing much to soothe his frayed nerves, either. He expected better of Anders.

“A _rumor?_ And where did this rumor come from, exactly? Did this pearl of wisdom drop from the mouth of some noble Redanian cocksucker directly into your ear, Anders? Out with it.”

“S-s-s-s—” Anders hisses, head bowed, his tongue getting caught in the apology.

Dijkstra sighs. It’s the madman that deserves his ire, not his informant.

He pivots, waving a hand in acknowledgement of his boorishness. “Sorry, mate. Sorry for the aggression.”

“I understand c-c-completely, m-milord,” Anders snivels.

Then he raises his head.

A shout gets stuck in Dijkstra’s throat.

His eyes. His eyes are a cold silvery white, all except for the tiny dot of a grey pupil in the center.

He changes. He stands straighter, his posture shifts, and he lifts his chin up proudly, all traces of the Anders Dijkstra has known for the past several years fading away in an instant.

But it’s more than that. His features begin to alter, too: his face contorts, the sagging skin sliding back to reveal a normal, even handsome visage. His shoulders look broader. His twisted, clubbed foot heals, and he adopts a wide, confident stance.

Dijkstra stumbles back, slamming into the bookcase behind him. Anders—or whoever he is—is blocking the only exit. The bathhouse is closed: no patrons would be present to hear his cries, and he has a sinking feeling that Happen is lying in a pool of his own blood out in the hallway.

His mind works and works, trying to wring from itself an escape plan, and all the while Anders just keeps _changing_.

His face and body twist even further, the humanity of him beginning to fall away altogether. His nose grows to a disturbing size and folds back on itself, pointing upward, its shape like that of a leaf. His ears extend into points like an elf’s, only much longer. From his fingers, deadly claws descend, each one nearly a foot in length.

When he speaks again, his stutter has vanished completely, and there’s a rasping darkness to his voice:

“It can be so vexing when something is troubling you in your _gut_.”

Lacking another choice, Dijkstra tries to rush for the door—the thing might be fierce-looking, but Dijkstra is still taller and broader than he is—perhaps he can force an exit.

Those qualities unfortunately also make him an excellent target, and Anders’s claws have no trouble catching him, sinking with an audible _squish_ into the middle of Dijkstra’s torso.

The creature is unnaturally strong, too: he shoves his arm further into the spy’s belly and lifts up, ripping into his innards and pulling him up off the ground an inch or so.

Dijkstra thinks he might feel one of the talons graze his spinal cord; the weight and sensation of his legs disappears, and when Anders withdraws from him, he falls to the ground in a heap, head smacking against the bookcase as he goes.

Anders crouches down before him, first studying his handiwork, and then his own hand, wiggling his fingers and watching the light play off the gleaming crimson dripping from his nails.

He makes what Dijkstra thinks is a face of dissatisfaction—it’s hard to say with the bizarre shape of his features—and sighs heavily.

“That was terrible, wasn’t it?” he admits. “I’m sorry. I just got caught up in the moment and I couldn’t think.”

He clacks his claws together absently; they sound like they’re made of steel.

“Of course, _now_ I’m coming up with food and eating-associated wordplay in spades—‘ _it can be a bit hard to swallow,’_ or, _‘I know how this is gnawing at you._ ’ Almost _anything_ would have been better than what I said.” He releases another sigh, this one brighter, more wistful. “Ah, well. Sometimes we rise to meet the occasion… and others… well.”

Dijkstra opens his mouth, intending to tell Anders to fuck off already, but all that comes out is a wet gurgle, blood rolling down his chin. In the haze of pain that’s begun to hit him, it occurs to him that he’s already spoken his last words; he doesn’t remember what they were.

“You’ll keep this between us, won’t you?” Anders smiles, and draws his arm back, ready to strike the killing blow. “Now there’s a good chap.”

Dijkstra fucking hates all of this.

Not so much that he’s being murdered—that was essentially an inevitability in his line of work. He’d hoped it wouldn’t happen so soon, but it was always there, waiting for him.

No, he really just hates _how_ it’s happening.

He hates that he can’t feel his legs, even though it doesn’t really matter; he won’t feel _anything_ soon, anyway.

He hates that if he’d dug just a _little_ deeper in Anders’s background when he met the man, he’s sure he would have run smack into a great swath of people who’d never fucking heard of Anders, that the man he knew never fucking existed.

But, as Anders’s claws come speeding toward his face, he’s pretty sure what he hates most of all is that his final thought in this world is: _I wonder what the ploughing witcher would make of this?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out this [amazing art of Mr. Leach in his adorable straw hat](https://twitter.com/dreadelion/status/959897072844582912) by [dreadelion](http://dreadelion.tumblr.com/)!!! I love it so much!
> 
> And this piece by [ConAffettoKiko](http://con-affetto-kiko.tumblr.com/) of [our fave barber surgeon shamelessly flirting with Mister Ossory is absolutely life giving](http://con-affetto-kiko.tumblr.com/post/171670492654/the-doctor-steps-closer-to-mister-ossory). Perfect, perfect rendition of that scene.


	2. Signs and wonders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Two days,” Regis says, as if reading his mind—or maybe just feeling the slight shift in his breeches. “Two days until baths, and fully prepared meals, and _beds_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my dear ones [Dordean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dordean) and [Kaeltale](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeltale/pseuds/kaeltale) for the awesome beta, as always. Double thanks to [Kael](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeltale/pseuds/kaeltale) for spending a ton of time with me on the Vampiric / Etruscan translations / vocabulary building! You are a gift and I adore you.
> 
> A million thanks also to the absolutely incomparable [Dreadelion](http://dreadnsfw.tumblr.com/) for the super helpful porn consultation!

Geralt glances up and takes in the moon.

It’s not quite full tonight, the broken arc of it suspended over the Mag Deira plains, everything below it limned in silver.

It’ll probably reach its zenith in two or so days, roughly when they arrive in Metinna city.

It can’t come soon enough. Reaching the city, that is.

(The full moon is no bad thing, either.)

The closest farm is over a mile back, nearer to the road. Neither man nor any other mammal is in the immediate vicinity.

All is still, save for a breeze rushing through the grass now and then; it rises occasionally, like the volume of the trilling insect chorus around them, but always falls again: teasing, indecisive.

Everything about it is familiar. The sense memory echoes and resolves in him: this is the Path. His Path, the one he knows, has always known.

He breathes in, rolling his shoulders and tilting his head to the side. His neck surrenders a loud, satisfying pop, and with that, he sits by the campfire.

The muscles in the small of his back protest the change in his stance strenuously; nothing out of the ordinary, especially for a witcher, but it's an irritation all the same. He groans, cursing at the pain.

“Fuck me.”

The reply comes immediately.

“Perhaps later.”

Throwing the last of the chicken bones in the fire, Regis casts a soft if impish smile in his direction before standing again to finish picking up after their evening meal.

This is Geralt’s Path.

And also… not.

He chuckles and throws a hand out, fingers curling, interrupting the cleanup effort.

“C’mere. Sit with me a minute?”

“Of course.”

And there’s no hesitancy now, no gradual, tentative increase in contact, nor any fumbling around in different arrangements, subtly shifting the angles of long limbs.

In one smooth movement—or least as smooth as his aching tendons will allow—Geralt stretches out his legs invitingly, and Regis lies down on his back, his head in the witcher’s lap.

He can’t quite recall when they started favoring this position, but it’s become something of a routine, especially at the end of a long day of riding: a balm to their maltreated muscles, if not a curative.

Geralt’s fingers twist in Regis’s hair, the soft, unruly strands having grown just long enough that some of their curl is starting to show. His eyes flutter shut for a moment, and he smiles again, humming dreamily. Geralt has a sneaking suspicion that Regis is listening to the soft susurration of his femoral artery when he’s lying this way. Maybe that’s another reason the vampire likes this configuration so much.

The quiet and frequently ignored voice of his self-preservation—which sounds remarkably like Vesemir—tells Geralt he should probably be mildly alarmed by this.

But it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. In fact, he likes it. He likes all of it.

Well—Regis wiggles, getting comfortable, and nudges Geralt’s crotch—he _normally_ likes all of it.

Stopping in Staverden—heading east to Nazair at all, for that matter—had been Regis’s idea. He thought it prudent to try setting up shop; he hadn’t had an active surgical practice in over a year and felt the need to stretch certain professional muscles before their arrival in Nilfgaard city. Surprisingly, their stay yielded at least as much work for Geralt as for Regis, what with one of his patients having been under the influence of a particularly nasty hym.

Between their stay in the small town, and an abundance of travellers on the road between here and there, they’ve had almost no time alone in over a week. It’s probably the longest they've gone without fooling around since leaving Toussaint.

Geralt’s maybe a little keyed up at the moment.

But that’s not enough for him to tell Regis to stop touching him.

“Two days,” Regis says, as if reading his mind—or maybe just feeling the slight shift in his breeches. “Two days until baths, and fully prepared meals, and _beds_.” His voice is both lusty and threadbare when he says it, and Geralt can't tell what part of 'bed’ the vampire is looking forward to more: comfortable rest, or sex.

Which is understandable. This is an unusually long time for him to spend in human form and on horseback. Maybe the longest since they traveled with the hansa.

(Geralt definitely knows what _he's_ anticipating more, but he’s been a nomad on and off for over fifty years now. The aches and pains are a constant. The other thing… less so.)

“Been to Mettina before?”

“Once,” Regis tells him, “but it was a number of years ago.”

“How big a number?”

Regis chuckles, and when he opens his eyes again, Geralt can see the stars in them.

“Substantial. It was before your time,” he offers in typically enigmatic fashion.

Geralt doesn't know if that means his time specifically, or the time of witchers in general. (He did the math on Regis’s birth year once, and his brain went a little funny for several minutes afterward. He hasn't really dwelt on it since.)

Focusing his eyes to a point far beyond Geralt, somewhere in the vast blackness, Regis sighs again.

“Such a clear night. You can see Nóinín, the Dryad Queen, and there, Rheynard, the fox, and even the succubi.”

And that’s different, too, Geralt realizes: the world becoming more than useful again.

On the Path, the stars are signposts, a way of orienting yourself in the middle of nowhere. The moon is a calendar, and weather’s little more than an irritation at best, and a really unpleasant way to die at worst.

But now, the stars have regained their names. The moon has moods and meaning, and a storm can be something that either lulls you to sleep, sounding against a barn roof as you curl closer to your partner, lying in a haystack... Or something that catches you off guard during a quick fuck in a glade, leaving you both drenched and shaking with laughter.

Geralt tilts his head up to scan the pin pricked firmament, spotting the pattern in question.

Art by [Dreadelion](http://dreadelion.tumblr.com/), commissioned by me.

“That’s… I don’t remember the name of it, but that has to be the... the bear, right? The big bear? It’s too big to be a succubus.”

“Ah, but there are two of them, see? Baela and… oh, Kasdeya, if memory serves. They’re—” Regis traces the edge of the constellation, and Geralt squints, trying to follow the tip of his index finger. “Baela is atop her companion. See? And her head is between Kasdeya’s—”

He cuts Regis off when the copper drops. “—I see.”

Damn. Even the constellations are getting more action than he is.

“They don’t actually do that, right?” he wonders idly. “I mean, with another succubus. I assume that would… sort of defeat the purpose…”

“It depends on what purpose you mean,” Regis’s gaze falls back to Geralt’s face. “But I have been reliably informed it’s an effective way to catch a human’s attention.”

 _That_ Geralt can believe. He'd be hard pressed to look away from that particular display, even if he knew it was a trap.

“You would know better than I would,” he concedes. “I only ever knew one succubus outside of a contract, and that was a long time ago. Well. Relatively speaking,” he adds as an afterthought, remembering who he’s talking to.

He’d only been on the path for twenty odd years when he stumbled into the House of Glass, a cursed manor with a collection of strange inhabitants, some of whom weren’t entirely human.

Unlike most of the monsters with transformational abilities he's met—his present company very much included—Vara hadn't bothered to hide her identity from him.

He saw her as she was—wings, horns and all—within seconds of meeting her. And she apparently saw what _he_ was, too, because she kept right on flirting with him, her words sharp and fearless.

She surmised in seconds things about Geralt it took another couple decades for him to work out on his own. (The Trial of the Grasses had enhanced a great many of his attributes; introspection apparently wasn’t one of them.)

Regis squirms in Geralt’s lap again, thrilling at the potential for gossip like… well, not to put too fine a point on it, but a vampire who’s scented blood.

“My, but your non-human history is extensive. I had no idea. Were they male or female?”

Ripped abruptly from his excursion down the twisting pathways of memory, Geralt scoffs, his face contorting in disbelief. “What kind of a question is that?”

Regis lets his head tip the side fractionally: the reclining version of a shrug. “A perfectly reasonable one? You are here with _me_ , after all—”

“No, not that,” Geralt frowns, irritated that Regis is being so deliberately dense. It’s obvious what he’s talking about… isn’t it? “I mean… There aren’t any male succubi.”

Pinching his thumb and forefinger together, Regis winces. “A small correction: there aren’t _many_ male succubi. But they do exist, I assure you.”

 _What?_ “What are you talking about?”

“How to say this,” Regis ponders, pensive.

Even guarded by closed lips, he can make out the movement of Regis’s tongue gliding over his fangs, a telltale prelude to one of his signature soliloquies. Geralt is so damn fond of the habit, so transfixed by that little protrusion of lip, he sometimes misses part of the first sentence that follows it. It’s okay, he reasons: there are usually a lot more of them in tow.

“‘Succubus’ and ‘incubus’ aren’t gender markers,” the vampire explains. “They’re ways of denoting energy transfer. As you indicated, members of their species obtain power from acts of sexual congress. Each subspecies is named after their most efficient means of drawing energy. The name succubus is derived from a word in the Elder Speech meaning ‘to lie under.’ Incubus, inversely, means ‘to lie on.’” He shrugs again. “I presume one with an agile mind such as yours can infer the rest.”

For once, Geralt doesn’t even attempt to cut him off. He’s too thrown by what he’s hearing.

Meanwhile, Regis’s hands dance in the space between them as he gestures fluidly, continuing the lesson. “There are males and females on both ends of the spectrum, but naturally it’s impossible for them not to have been affected by your customs. Most exist along the gender lines in much the way you would assume, but certainly not all.”

There’s a long pause after Regis draws his thoughts on the subject to a close, and, stuttering back to life, Geralt's brain finally pulls together a reply.

“Regis.” He’s trying not to sound too strident in his protests, but balancing a career’s worth of experience against the idea he’s being presented with is difficult. “I read hundreds of books at Kaer Morhen. Vesemir made me memorize and recite lines from them when I got in trouble. Which was a fair amount.” He shakes his head. “There wasn’t one single mention of male succubi.”

The tone Regis uses to respond is no less urgent, and lacks not an ounce of Geralt's conviction.

“ _Geralt_. If you’d had an encounter with a male succubus—or a female incubus, I suppose—exactly how likely would _you_ be to record it for posterity, hmm? Given human cultural norms?”

Geralt opens his mouth, then finds himself snapping it shut again.

It’s a fair question—he can’t think of a single person he knows who’d brag about the feat. Witchers are thin on the ground these days, and even they’ll rarely admit to sleeping with _female_ succubi. Well, except to one another, and usually only when they’re drunk.

Just because he and Lambert and Eskel haven’t run into one isn’t proof they don’t exist. Besides, the three of their ages combined don’t add up to Regis’s lifespan. Who was more likely to have encountered one and subsequently earned their trust: a near immortal kindred spirit, or a killer of their kind?

And as far as the succubus’s position in the matter went, the potential for blackmail was merely added security for their identity: _if you tell anyone about me, I’ll tell everyone about you._

Cast in that light, it suddenly becomes much easier to believe there’s a whole gender of creatures Geralt has never laid eyes on.

“It’s hardly even a hypothetical,” Regis goes on, musing. “How many people know about the nature of our relationship?”

And… okay, Geralt wasn’t ready for that.

The offhanded observation hits him like a palm strike to the chest; he sucks a breath in through his nose, recovering from it.

Dates, dinner parties, dances… They’re a pretty fucking lousy way to spend an evening. Fancy clothes, a lot of bullshit conversation, and half the time the damn things still end up a violent mess, resolving somewhere between a fist fight and a political revolution.

But he hadn’t actually considered until this moment, that with Regis, he doesn’t have a choice about it anymore. Attending those events with him isn’t even an option.

The wave of emotion he’s inadvertently been swept into must be showing on his face for once, because Regis’s chipper attitude falls flat in an instant. He reaches up for Geralt’s jaw, caressing it gently, fingers skimming briefly over his carotid pulse point: their silent shorthand for calm, reassurance. The answering rhythm in Regis fingers is the exact same tempo.

 _Resonance_ , Geralt thinks.

“No, _cordis carmen_ , no,” his lover tells him. “Don’t interpret this as the airing of a grievance. I believe I’ve been forthcoming about how much I value my privacy. It is, in many ways, the least troubling of my secrets, and I don’t mind keeping it between us in the slightest. Truly.”

He puts his hand atop Regis’s, their entangled fingers sliding along his chin, brushing the downward curve of the corner of his mouth.

Maybe Regis wouldn’t appreciate being... _shown off_ , per se, in the way a sorceress might. And yes, either of them could easily dispatch anyone caught thumbing the barest insult in their direction. But any display of affection at all between them in a public setting could draw the wrong sort of attention. He’d be unlikely to get work as a witcher—and Regis even less so as a surgeon—if that happened.

Although, as much as this is Geralt’s first real relationship with a man, it isn’t Regis’s.

“Do your people care about men screwing other men?” he asks—then quickly adds, “Two sentences or less.”

Regis rolls his eyes, but the expression is clearly fond. He answers slowly, as if examining his limitations.

At length, he says, “It's considered an eccentricity, perhaps, more than a taboo.”

As impressed as he is with Regis’s restraint, Geralt is pretty sure there’s more to it than that.

“Really?” Skepticism is evident in his tone. “They’re all fine with it? You’re telling me not all vampires make snide comments about the worth of sex absent of the possibility of reproduction?”

He turns his scowl-smile down toward Regis, who in turn peers back up, brow furrowing, lips parted slightly in confusion.

Geralt just waits for him to pick up the reference. The remark was made at a very different fireside confessional, true enough, and it was eight years ago, but that’s nothing for a vampire.

“Oh, _that_ ,” Regis says finally, recalling his words from their time with Cahir, Milva and the others. He grins. “I fear you simply missed the subtlety in my particular style of humor.”

Geralt laughs. Only Regis would be capable of not only sidestepping an apology, but turning it into an insult as well.

“Is that what it was?”

“Obviously.” His answer is breezy, dismissive. “It's not as though _I_ was trying for offspring with Natanis back in Toussaaaaahhhh—”

The duchy’s second syllable comes pouring out of Regis’s mouth as an elongated breathy cry: Geralt’s taken his hand hostage, drawing the vampire’s wrist up to his mouth and placing a wet kiss into the sensitive flesh there, then scraping lightly at it with his teeth.

Regis’s eyes glaze over and he goes quiet and slack in Geralt’s lap.

“You _know_ how I feel about that.” Geralt doesn’t bother elaborating on what ‘that’ is in this instance. This is not the first conversation they’ve had about Regis’s tendencies to chatter about his past conquests—and Geralt’s too, for that matter. The rule usually only applies to the bedroom, but given their current circumstances, Geralt feels he’s justified in forcing Regis into silence, punishing him with a little pleasure.

But when Regis returns to himself, he looks entirely unrepentant.

“I do,” he says, a challenge glistening in his eyes.

Geralt sighs.

He _is_ intrigued now, dammit. He never saw the Toussaint succubus himself. Palmerin, Milton, and Regis made sure he didn’t have to.

He has something of a hard time believing all the knights of Beauclair were spellbound by a slim hipped, square jawed young man. But now that he considers it, they didn’t ever call the creature by a name, and they had been _awfully_ adamant about keeping the matter private...

Regis’s curiosity must be rubbing off on him; he can’t leave it alone.

“Fine. You gonna tell me about... them?” he tries, overcautious. “This… Natanis... was a—”

“—being of extraordinary intelligence and charm,” Regis cuts him off, obviously delighted by the subterfuge.

Geralt snorts. “Guess your standards have really fallen off then, huh?”

Regis tenses in his arms, and something goes hard in his eyes. The stars reflected there shine back a little brighter, burning with an indignant little spark, and the rebuke that follows is swift.

“ _Stop_ that this instant.”

Geralt is… stunned.

Galled as he is to break his own rule, the first thought that crashes through his brain in the subsequent silence is that this conversation would have gone very differently with Yen.

She'd have laughed and agreed with his assessment of self, and they'd have picked at one another with the pleasant and slightly painful satisfaction one gets from picking at a scabbed over wound.

But Regis is staring up at him with a fierce protectiveness. He’s seen the look before, but never cast in his direction. They’ve looked after one another for years now; it’s not really any secret that shared between them is an unspoken promise to defend the other from any possible source of harm. Geralt just hadn’t realized that included _him_ , too.

Come to think of it, he’s not sure anyone’s ever pushed back against his bitter or self-deprecating remarks before. It’s... disorienting. He’s not sure how to proceed.

“Relax,” he deflects. “I was joking.”

Regis frowns and looks out into the waving tall grass.

“Now I fear it's I who has misinterpreted your humor.”

Eyes still trained away, he pulls himself up and shifts his position, sitting beside the witcher with his back against the log. He opens his mouth, then closes it, and folds his hands in his lap.

“Geralt,” he says finally, voice not much louder than the wind over the plain, “I know I can be a bit egregious in my provocations sometimes. If I ever caused you to feel… If you ever want me to stop—”

 _That_ Geralt knows how to handle a little better.

He twists sharply, reorienting himself to face Regis, a planet pulled back into orbit.

The ease with which his hands cut through space, one landing on Regis’s neck and the other cupping the side of his face, is practiced, feels as effortless as casting a Sign, and his lips are moving on Regis’s before he can say another word.

Regis burns hot and soft against him, like a flame set to a candle, igniting it.

“Don’t,” he breathes into Regis’s cheek. “Don't you _dare_.” Maybe it’s not as blatantly obvious as Geralt thinks it is. Maybe it is, and he should say it anyway. “I like this. Every part of it. Don’t listen to my grumbling. I’m not airing grievances either. I just—”

Every end to that sentence feels leaden and dull and completely inadequate, so he kisses Regis again instead, and he swears he can feel the world being righted, tilting back into place.

Regis leans into him, so he doesn’t have to bring his voice above a whisper when he speaks. “Don’t change a thing,” he says, unsure if it’s a plea or an order.

Regis smiles, nuzzling him, sideburns brushing his cheek. “Very well,” he agrees. “Very well, my witcher.”

He’s not sure if it’s the touch of Regis’s lips against his ear, or how he says it, or what causes it, exactly.

But the warm buzzing of _that_ word—what he is to the world, what he is to _Regis_ —whispered to him in the dark, sends a tremor of lust through him. He shudders.

Regis draws back fractionally, blinking. “Oh, _hello_ ,” he murmurs, delighted at what he’s discovered. “Have you missed that, ‘Mister Ossory’? Your proper title? Have our alternate identities taken their toll on you?”

He reaches in past Geralt’s shirt collar… only to stop short of touching Geralt’s collarbone, running a finger carefully over the links of his medallion’s chain instead. “My lovely witcher.”

Geralt bites down on a moan, and tries to pull Regis into him.

But the vampire is having none of it, suddenly untangling himself from Geralt and standing up. Geralt has to catch himself with a hand to keep from falling forward into the dirt, while Regis returns to picking up after their meal, casual as anything.

“Two days,” he adds, chipper, stacking mugs and plates. “Wouldn’t you rather wait until we get to an inn?”

Extremely unsubtly, Geralt flops back against the log they were both seated by moments ago and lets his legs drop open, his body’s objection to Regis’s plan on full display. 

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding me.”

Regis doesn’t look, but he does pause long enough in his tidying to sigh. “I suppose we could pitch the tent.”

“Heh.” Geralt’s hand falls on his thigh. “Taken care of—wait.” He stops, stricken. “Do you mean the _actual_ tent?”

“My privacy, Geralt,” Regis pouts as he packs away the spits and other cooking equipment. “I _value_ it.”

Exasperated, Geralt growls and scrubs his hands over his face. “This is— We— There is no one in a mile radius.”

Regis neatly wipes his hands on the towel tucked into his belt, and begins retrieving their bedrolls. 

“Nearly two, actually,” he confirms, shaking out the fabric. “In all directions but north.” He finally looks up at Geralt, grinning wickedly. “The local rooks have been ever so helpful.”

There’s a burst of sound, a frantic fluttering of feathers on the air, and Geralt whips around to see at least six birds flee from their hiding place in the tall grass, about forty feet from where they’re sitting, and take to the sky.

He laughs. Loudly. At least as loud as the sound of the rooks taking off.

Apart from Ciri, Regis is the only one who can make him laugh that way.

“Gods,” he huffs, still chuckling. “I l—”

His tongue is curled up, pressed against the back of his teeth when he stops himself, the unspoken word hanging in his mind.

It’s too soon to say it, probably.

But the feeling… the feeling is very much there.

He can only describe it in the simple language of a witcher.

It has weight, heft, like the pommel of a sword hilt being pressed insistently against his chest.

And it’s also like a wound that refuses to close: something gaping, unprotected.

It’s give and take, both, at the same time, and all of that sounds awful, but it isn’t. It’s the opposite. It’s precious to him; he couldn’t bear to stop feeling it.

He wants to say it, but he’s rusty at this, and cautious about the _how_ of it.

The first time he’d told Yen he loved her out loud, he’d been shoving prawns onto his plate at a buffet. She reciprocated, and he’d nearly choked.

He’d like to put at least a _bit_ more thought into what he tells Regis and when, and sitting in an empty field sporting a cockstand doesn’t seem like a vast improvement.

 _I want you_ , he could say instead, but that’s nothing Regis doesn’t know. _I hate you_ could slip out just as easily, because they thrive on teasing, and, because of the aforementioned affliction, it’s even a little bit true.

He sighs.

“You’re full of shit, you know that?” he says at last, and the way Regis looks at him—his keen-edged smile going soft—makes him think that the vampire probably knows it means pretty much the same thing as what he wanted to say in the first place.

“I know, dear heart,” he says quietly.

He pulls a book from his pack and lies down on the bedroll, settling in to read it.

After a protracted pause, he glances up and pats the empty space beside him.

“Come lie with me, witcher. We’ll see what can’t be done.”

* * *

The kisses start innocently enough. Then Regis shoves his tongue in Geralt’s mouth just as Geralt is sliding his fingers inside the collar of Regis’s shirt, and it’s all over.

“Compromise is a key element of stable relationships, as I understand it,” Regis says, freeing his cock from the confines of his smallclothes.

“Right,” Geralt agrees sensibly, tearing at the laces of his breeches.

“And—” Long fingers wrap around both of them, tugging at them gently but urgently. “ _Haah_ —there’s something rather romantic about being under the stars, isn’t there?”

He slides his hand up the back of Regis’s thigh and, oh, _Kreve almighty_.

One of the things Geralt’s been surprised and gratified to learn over the past month is that, somehow, in spite of the rest of him being at least eighty percent elbows and knees, perched atop the two skinny stalks of his legs, Regis has a _magnificently_ round little ass.

It’s full and firm and fits perfectly in his cupped hand, and he kind of wishes they weren’t lying on their sides so he could just— _grab_ it.

He’s had designs on doing a lot more than that for a while now.

There’s really only one thing Regis hasn’t let Geralt do yet, and that’s fuck him. And he very much wants to.

But he loves everything else they do, too; it mostly hasn’t come up because Geralt’s been reduced to a quivering speechless mass before he can say the first word about it, so it’s not like he can complain.

Maybe in Metinna, safely away from the prying eyes of village children and the odd passing traveler, they can talk about it.

He hadn’t realized it until just now: he’s apparently got a lot of things he wants to say.

Geralt opens his mouth—

—Regis slides his fingers through the little runnel of slick he’s leaking and drags it back over both of them on the downstroke—

—and he comes with nothing but Regis’s name on his breath.

 

* * *

 

From her place on the balcony, Thy watches the band play.

The fishheaded man plays something that looks like a mandolin, but with a much deeper tone. He’s fishheaded not in that he has a fish’s head as his own, but rather the head of a gigantic fish set upside down atop his shoulders. Its fins point up, its unblinking eyes sit about where his neck should be, and its immense silver maw slopes down to cover his collarbones like a gorget. He doesn’t seem impaired by it in the slightest.

The man with the pointed furry ears like a cat—no, maybe a fox?—drives the melody forward on his drum.

A little ways away, a man made of a shadow strums an instrument she’s never seen before. When he pulls at the strings, it sounds like breaking glass.

A cloud drifts in front of the sun, and she looks up to see it’s not a cloud at all. Overhead, enormous creatures with long plated bodies and colossal mouths sail past, undulating through the air with grace. They look like a cross between a dragon, a water bird and a… well, a _tê tê đất_ ; there’s not a Nilfgaardian word for it.

She’s never seen anything like them.

Whatever they are, she’s… pretty sure they don’t really exist. In Novigrad, or anywhere else.

Cutting through music, she hears a voice with a Northern accent—and for moment she wonders if the voice should really have an accent at all, because shouldn’t Corrine be speaking Common? Of course, it’s a dream; they’re not really speaking at all—and then she remembers that she’s not _on_ the balcony, she’s talking to Corrine. _Sheiss_.

In a blink, she’s back in her chair.

“Sorry,” she sputters immediately.

Corrine stops in the middle of a sentence. “What?”

Maybe she didn’t notice...?

Thy silently curses herself again. She really has to work on keeping things moving in a linear fashion.

“Um, nothing.” She has no idea what the other oneiromancer was saying. Best to just move ahead, then? “I really like your… sky creatures.”

Corrine looks past her toward the balcony, and Thy’s eyes dip down—again—to Corrine’s exposed sternum. She keeps trying to look away, but it’s just so… bare. Is that a dream outfit, or what she actually wears? Gods, isn’t it cold in the North? How is she not freezing?

“They’re not mine,” Corrine tells her, glancing back. “I’m pretty sure they’re yours, actually.”

“Oh,” Thy says. “Right.”

The older woman shrugs nonchalantly. “I mean, that or they're Sara’s.”

And she nods down to the child sitting on the floor just to her left.

Except for the first time, Thy can see it’s not a child. Or not like a child that she’s ever seen.

Her skin is violet in hue, getting progressively more dusky at her hands and feet like she’s spilled ink all over herself. Her hair is a green-tinged yellow, and when she swivels her head to look at Thy, her impossibly large eyes are glossy like purple hematite.

The little mouth smiles.

“Hello!” the girl says merrily.

“Wait.” Thy blinks. “She’s—you’re—real?”

“‘Course I’m real!” the fae-like girl answers for herself. “You might be a dream spinner, but you couldn’t come up with something like me.”

Corrine rests her elbows on her crossed legs. “To tell you the truth, Sara’s the only one I’ve ever met who can do what you do. Certainly never met a human who could do it before. What you’re capable of… it’s… more than onieromancy.”

As much as Thy would like to give her full attention to Corrine’s praise, her eye is drawn down to the other woman’s fingers, where leaves have started sprouting. Thy squints and tries to focus, and the leaves disappear.

“Can you do this with non-magical folk?” Corrine asks. “Talk to them, visit them like this? In their minds?”

Thy shakes her head. “Not so far. Getting into their heads at all is tricky. I have to know an awful lot about them. Which brings me back to—”

“Right, right. Well,” Corrine leans back in her seat, reticent. “I don’t normally discuss my clients with anyone, even other practitioners. It's… private. You understand.”

“Of course,” Thy agrees, having almost no idea what Corrine means. She’s never had clients of her own. She only found out she could even do this two years ago. “But… well.” She swallows. “I’ve been told this is a matter of life and death.”

“Hmm.” Corrine frowns. “In that case... I only met him the once, mind you. He was looking for a woman at that time.”

“Ciri,” Thy adds, trying not to sound too excited.

For someone she’s never met, she’s certainly got a lot of feelings about Ciri.

She didn’t know who the pale scarred girl with the white hair was for the longest time. But she appeared in Thy’s dreams so often, Thy felt like she knew her. Knew her struggles, her joys.

It wasn’t until she was recruited for her current position that she learned her name and life’s story. Her abilities were even more unbelievable than Thy’s.

They’re connected in some way, her and Ciri. She just knows it.

Thy can’t believe she might get to meet her.

But… The witcher. She has to prove she can find the witcher first. Not just find him, but—

Breaking into Thy’s thoughts, the purple-skinned girl pipes up again. She looks up for a moment from the butterflies she’s creating in the palm of her hand. “He’s a nice man! He wasn’t frightened of me at all.”

“He found her, then?” Corrine asks. “The woman he was seeking?”

Thy nods, playing back everything Master De Rideaux told her in her head. She doesn’t think that bit is a state secret.

“Good,” Corrine echoes her nod. “Good.”

“You haven’t heard from him since?” Thy prompts.

“No. I was only introduced to him through Triss Merigold, and she hasn’t been back in ages.”

“What about his…” Thy shifts in her chair. “...friend?”

“A friend?” Corrine scrunches her face, looking confused. “Not Triss?”

“No. You know,” Thy gestures uncomfortably.

Corrine just purses her lips.

“You _don’t_ know. Right.” Thy takes a deep breath. It’s… strange, knowing people’s most intimate feelings before knowing their names. She’s never sure what other people know and don’t know about them from the outside. Sometimes people don’t look like themselves in dreams. Sometimes, as in this case, Thy doesn’t know what they look like at all.

“Uh, well. They’re… not human, I know that. And they’re… very old. Ancient, I think? Maybe?”

The witcher’s companion is the one she’s actually been able to pick up on, much more so than the witcher himself. She still can’t get a location on them, though, which is what gave her a clue about their non-human nature. Anyone else whose mind that was calling out so loudly would’ve been easy to trace physically.

“Aen Seidhe?” Corrine tries, sounding like she knows she, too, is out of her depth on this.

“I don't think so.” She can’t really say why she doesn’t think they’re an elf. It’s just a feeling. Dealing in dreams means dealing in vague impressions; intuition is something you simply have to trust sometimes. “You don’t know anything about them?”

Corrine shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I do hope you find the witcher. It sounds important.”

“It is,” Thy assures her seriously. “I—”

An immense booming stops her mid phrase.

She looks to the balcony, and sees the sky has turned a sickly green color. The flying creatures are shaking in time with the low rumbling crashes.

Thy turns back to Corrine, her mouth tearing wildly through the words. “ _Sorry Corrine I have to go thank you goodbye_ —”

The entire world blanks out around her, and then she wakes up.

Furiously she tosses aside her blanket and yanks her robe belt tighter around her waist, the soles of her bare feet giving the marble tile an angry _slap_ with each step she takes.

She specifically told all the palace staff that knocking was just about the worst thing they could do if she was working. Sure, these aren’t her normal dreaming hours, but still. She’s going to give whoever’s on the other side of that door a piece of her _mind_ —

She yanks open the door and the pounding stops.

“ _Eunan_ ,” she says breathlessly, feeling her mouth turn up at the corners and her eyes crinkle.

His green brown eyes are the size of the platters from the royal table, his already slim face made thinner by the way his mouth is hanging open in a little ‘o’. His fist is still in mid air, prepared for another knock. And his sand blonde hair is as gorgeous as ever, hugging close to his head down to his ear and then curling out like—

_Calm down, girl._

“Lady Thy.” The page nods too respectfully.

She snorts. “You have really got to stop calling me that.” However her fancy new clothes and her room in the Imperial Palace make her appear, she is _not_ a lady.

Eunan gives her a fractional smile, but doesn’t acknowledge her request. “The Emperor wanted to make sure your work was coming along well,” he explains carefully..

“You mean he wanted me to work faster,” she smirks. “I get it. I was just talking to a contact; she didn’t have much information for me.”

“This is from Master de Rideaux, if it helps, and the new sorceress will be here in a few days—”

Thy scans the slip of paper from the spymaster. The usual enchanted coating on the paper is rough under her fingertips. It will disappear altogether within the hour. She hands it back to Eunan anyway. As the note changes hands, she doesn’t quite manage to touch him. (Damn.)

“Nazair?” she asks, bringing her brain back to the task at hand. “And headed back south. On the road to Mettina, they think? Sounds like they’re already on their way here.” She sighs. “Have to make sure of it, though. Thank you.”

She smiles at him, and he gives her another little bow. He turns on his heel, and she begins to retreat back behind the door to her room.

She takes a deep breath.

She’s a powerful oneiromancer. She’s working a personal mission for the Emperor of Nilfgaard. And she’s eighteen and a half years old already. She _definitely_ can do this.

“Eunan.”

The boy stutters to a stop, turning to see her poking her head back out the door.

“Do you like Ofieri food?” she asks.

He presses his lips together, looking a little sheepish.

“I... don’t rightly know, my lady.”

Right. She’ll just ignore that ‘lady’ business until he stops.

“Have any interest in finding out?” she smiles. “I know this little place in the Linen Quarter run by a couple from Bharatavarsha, they make the _best_ samboksa.”

(Gods, he just said he’d never had it, why is she babbling on about it? Better just say it already.)

She opens the door a little wider and steps into the hallway.

“And, well, unless Northerners go to sleep awfully early, I have all afternoon, so...”

She trails off and bites her lip, looking at him hopefully.

His eyes dart away and he fidgets. “I have duties to attend to, my lady. But…”

_He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to, she shouldn’t have asked, this was a dumb idea—_

“It’s okay,” she says, turning away.

“But!” He puts up a hand, stopping her, then drops it to his side, like he’s scared to have told a royal sorceress what to do. He scrapes the nails of his fingers with his thumbs and looks away again.

“I… would very much like to go. With you. Some other day.”

Oh, is he just... nervous?

That’s okay. She’s a little nervous too.

“Okay,” she agrees. “Maybe... tomorrow? Day after?”

He finally meets her eyes again, and the green flecks in his are shining a little brighter now.

“I’ll see what I can do. I… am looking forward to it.” He swallows. “ _Thy._ ”

He bows again before leaving, and she waves, and when she falls back against the closed door inside her room, she has to put her hand over her mouth, smiling into it.

Right. Well. That was… _amazing_.

She paces three or four times around her room, and then sits on the bed. She stands back up, and does one more lap, then sits back down again.

Finally, she decides to go for a walk in the gardens. Get some fresh air, and maybe get a little meditation in.

And then maybe a trip to the palace library; the Imperial collection has to have an awful lot of information about non-humans, doesn’t it? Maybe she can try to narrow down what species the witcher’s friend is. She won’t be able to actually work for hours, but that doesn’t mean she can’t prepare.

She’ll be completely ready as soon as the time comes, she thinks excitedly. 

After all, she just got herself a date with Eunan.

How hard can finding one witcher be?

 

* * *

 

The Innkeep is a medium sort of a man, neither too tall or short, and not thin or heavy, either. His hair’s in between red and brown. The only truly distinctive thing about him is his thick mustache that trails into mutton chops, much bushier than Regis’s, protruding farther from the sides of his face.

He even speaks in a steady, non-committal tone when he says, “Well, sirs, we’ve just the one vacancy right now,” and Geralt can tell he’s sizing them up.

He’s not surprised.

The weather turned on them yesterday afternoon, and rather than try to make camp and wait out the storm, they decided to ride on, determined to keep to the schedule they’d set for themselves.

Unable to get a fire going after a miserable day of riding, they ate dried meats and nuts in the rain, and slept for a few hours at most. (Rain isn’t _always_ romantic.)

They started back on the road again early and made good time on the last leg of the journey, arriving at the city gates by mid morning, ill-tempered and caked in mud, only to see a notice board plastered with postings about the Second Annual Festival of _Bloed Aurs_.

(“Gold _what?_ ” Regis had asked, incredulous. “What is—?”

Geralt shrugged. “Your guess is good as mine. Willing to bet it’s not literal, though.”)

It became clear within moments inside the city limits that the festival in question was a new tradition in the city. Lagers and ales brewed as far away as Ymlac and Vicovaro had been aged in barrels used for different varietals of last season’s wines: well known cabernets and merlots from Toussaint, and of course, a number of fine Mettina rosés. Over the next few days, they’d all be tapped, served, and drunk.

The light golden beers took on red and pink hues during the aging process, hence: Golden Blood.

(“It’s… certainly evocative,” Regis told a merchant with a stilted smile.)

What became even more clear over the next hour was the fact that seemingly all of the province had descended on the city, meaning vacant rooms were hard to come by. And the ones that were available were—at least, to Geralt’s mind—outrageously expensive.

The Tern and Thrush is their fourth stop, and the first that’s had any vacancy at all.

Geralt is sure it comes with a catch. Or at least, an exorbitant price attached to it.

But every part of him is aching. His clothes are stiff with dried dirt, and he’s more than ready for a wash and a hot meal, not to mention certain other amenities. It seems increasingly likely that they’ll have to pay a premium to secure any kind of a room at all.

“And that would be…?” Regis asks, obviously as eager to resolve their lodging situation as he is.

“The Imperial suite upstairs,” the Innkeep tells them in that same neutral tone. “It’s usually reserved for visiting nobles and merchants, but it’s available at the moment if you’d like.”

Geralt doesn’t react, but an acrid taste flares in the back of his throat. In addition to dredging up rather unpleasant connotations, the suite’s lofty title tells him exactly how expensive it is to still be available during the festival.

They have a decent amount of coin from Anarietta left, but he’d been hoping it would take them all the way to Nilfgaard city.

He makes a fist out of the Innkeep’s line of sight and stifles a sigh. This was the last inn in the Market District they hadn’t tried yet. The ones in the Grainery District will probably be less decadent, and more likely to have rooms available for less than a small fortune.

He’s weighing the expense and convenience of the suite against the thought of finding out the dingier rooms on the other side of town are just as occupied, when Regis pipes up.

“Oh, splendid,” he says brightly. “You take it, Mister Ossory. I’ll find lodging elsewhere.”

Geralt flicks Regis a glance that he hopes isn’t _too_ alarmed or confused. They’ve had to make a show of booking separate rooms once before, but it really isn’t necessary here. Room sharing doesn’t always imply an intimate relationship, especially not in a situation like this.

“You’re… sure, Mister Leach?” he asks, cautious.

A glimmer passes through Regis’s dark eyes, and Geralt realizes he’s hatching a plan.

The particulars of which he almost certainly will not inform Geralt about until much later.

Great.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Regis tells him, voice pitching up, sounding a hair too excited for someone supposedly so disappointed at having lost their chance at a room. “I _insist_.” He grins. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“Right,” Geralt says.

He turns back to the Innkeep and reserves the suite, only blinking a few extra times when he hears the cost of a night’s stay in a space supposedly fit for royalty.

In his periphery, he notices Regis moving toward the front door.

He finishes the booking as quickly as possible and exits, reaching the street only minutes later.

But as his gaze cuts through clusters of passersby, scanning the crowd for Regis’s lean form, the vampire is nowhere to be seen.

“Dammit, Regis,” he mutters under his breath, the phrase beginning to gain a familiar ring.

Looks like he has the afternoon to himself.

* * *

To the Innkeep’s credit, the suite really is beautiful.

It’s bigger than the foyer and master bedroom at Corvo Bianco combined, and the furnishings are every bit as fine. ‘Imperial’ might be a slight exaggeration, but Geralt can see why nobility passing through the region would choose to stay here.

There’s an huge oak dresser with finely carved floral details, and a sitting area with matching furniture. There’s even a private washtub, accompanied by a stock of salts, soaps, and oils that would make any Nilfgaardian proud. Geralt smiles. Mettina’s been known as the Gateway to the Empire for some time now; could be that’s not entirely a bad thing.

Of course, he can’t resist taking a look at the bed. It’s at least as big as the one he had back in Toussaint, draped in an exquisite coverlet of crimson brocade and topped with a small mountain of pillows. A quick press on the mattress tells him it’s not just feather-topped straw or wool, but completely down-filled, a rare luxury. He resists the urge to simply collapse on top of it and pass out, muddy and disgusting as he is, and decides a bath is the next best option.

It’s only a quarter to two when he emerges from the tub, clean and relaxed, scars flushed red against the pink glow of his freshly scrubbed skin. He even _smells_ good. Usually after this kind of treatment has to squeeze into hose and a doublet, so he revels a bit in the simple act of slipping on a clean shirt and trousers before making his way to the armorer recommended to him by the Innkeep.

With his placket dropped off for a patch job, and Roach and Draakul stabled and fed, he follows his nose to Zivelina Square, sampling his way through the local delicacies: a spiced beef stew in a bread bowl, grilled red potatoes, and little balls of fried dough topped with fine powdered sugar (his favorite of the lot).

Two pints of ‘Golden Blood’ later, and he’s feeling both indulgent and in mind of his paramour. His idle browsing of stalls and storefronts quickly turns into him making actual purchases.

 _In for a copper, in for a Floren_ , he thinks, handing a merchant more of their rapidly dwindling coin. They’ll have to travel a bit more simply between here and the capitol at this rate, but in the moment, all the extravagance feels worth the expense… Provided Regis reappears soon, at any rate.

His eyes go unfocused as he half watches a couple flirting and dancing near the fountain in the center of the square, and he smiles. He’s trying like hell to scrape up even the smallest resentment toward the vampire for leaving him without a word of warning, but he can’t quite manage it. He’s enjoyed the day immensely, and more than that, the time alone has been just what he needed.

If anything, he’s a little irritated that he didn’t recognize his desire for space sooner.

Leave it to Regis to look out for his well-being in ways he didn’t even realize.

He’s snapped out of his daydreaming when the merchant asks him about what special lady his gift’s recipient is. He glowers, close lipped, a practiced portrait of an emotionless witcher: typically a surefire way to head off unwanted chatter. It seems to do the trick this time, too.

The amorous couple is giggling as he walks by them; they don’t even see him, focused completely on one another.

He tucks the paper wrapped parcel under his arms and heads toward to the Tern and Thrush.

* * *

It’s twilight when he arrives back at the room to find it still empty.

He sighs.

Well, whatever Regis is doing, _he’s_ at least going to use the bed for his second favorite purpose.

Closing the shutters enough for privacy’s sake, he shucks his clothes and tosses them on the floor, then selects one of the containers of oil near the tub and sets it out on the nightstand, along with his purchase from earlier.

Finally, he throws back the coverlet, and when he slides in between the cool, clean sheets, oh, it feels every bit as nice as he thought it would: a little sliver of heaven.

He lets his gaze drift to window. The sky is markedly different from the other night: hazy, starless, shaded a listless blue-violet.

His eyes flutter shut, chasing errant thoughts from his head, a bone deep relaxation starting to permeate his entire form.

A not-quite-autumnal breeze drifts in, sweet and cool, carrying with it sounds and scents from the street below—conversations spiked with laughter, a cheery melody played on a flute, and the faint smell of oil lamps being lit.

Sleep is tugging softly but insistently at the corners of his consciousness, and he’s nearly about to give into it, when he feels the air change.

He registers it before anything else: the slight adjustment in pressure and temperature that tells him he’s not alone. The hairs on his arm are halfway to standing and his teeth are set slightly on edge when he opens his eyes to see a familiar mist billowing in from the window.

It’s not just grey, not the way he thought it was the first several times he saw it. It changes in both hue and opacity depending on the day and… he’s not sure what else causes it. Regis’s mood, maybe? Tonight it has a pretty blue-purple sheen to it—not unlike the sky, Geralt muses. It pools below the window ledge, hesitant, then snaps the shutters closed, beginning to waft slowly toward him. He follows its path with his eyes until he finally loses sight of it as it reaches the foot of the bed.

The blankets and sheets ripple, buoyed in an updraft, and there’s a cool, tingling sensation, first at his toes, then gliding up his legs. He laces his fingers behind his head and chuckles softly as it swirls over his groin, lingering appreciatively, then fans out over the length of his body.

It’s always a bit of a shock to see Regis’s resolution back to his human self; it’s even more mesmerizing mere inches in front of his face.

Where there’s an airy, teasing ghost one moment, there’s warmth and form and shape the next.

Regis holds himself away from Geralt, gazing down at him with a rakish smile.

“Evening,” he says, casual, easy.

“Hi.” Geralt gives him a grudging little smirk of his own. “Was wondering when you’d show.”

Regis shrugs.

“I had a few things to attend to, and you seemed to require the solitude.”

It’s hard to disagree with that. If anything it's only made him want Regis more.

Which was probably the vampire’s intent all along.

“You could have told me what you were up to,” Geralt says, all too aware of the futility of that argument. (He’s going to have to admit to himself at some point that he simply prefers partners who keep him in the dark about their aims.)

“Perhaps,” Regis hedges. His eyes wander over Geralt’s flexed arms, and he traces the line of his gaze with the fingertips of his right hand, his smile turning hungry. “But you can't in good conscience tell me this wasn't more fun.”

“It's... a good trick,” Geralt allows. “I'll give you that.”

Regis huffs, pouting in mock offense. _“Trick_.”

Geralt laughs, his own stare straying to the firm little knots of Regis’s deltoids, then in toward his collarbones and down to his chest.

“So...” He reaches up to touch Regis’s ribcage, fingers spidering down the sensitive flesh of his sides. “Now that you’re finally here…”

“Mmmmm,” Regis hums, settling between the witcher’s legs. Geralt loves this: touching the tender skin of his ‘underwing’, a lingering trace of one of his alternate shapes. It reminds him that Regis is both immensely powerful and deeply vulnerable at the same time.

His hands land on Regis’s hipbones, and he squeezes gently. “Have any other plans you’d care to inform me of?”

Regis begins to say something—then stops, catching himself on the inhale, the pink tip of his tongue set between the dagger sharp pearls of his teeth. He’s resting on a knife’s edge, deciding something.

He narrows his eyes, his thoughts seeming to fall into place.

 _“Mis ceisatru,”_ he says at last, brushing a crooked finger possessively down Geralt’s cheek. “ _Mlac mlakas_.”

Wordlessly, helplessly, Geralt’s eyes fall shut. Heat flares in his belly, and he can feel himself quickly growing hard against Regis’s own length.

_Oh._

It’s going to be like _that_.

He really should have known, what with the moon and all.

Vampires—higher ones, anyway—have two languages. Or, to hear Regis tell it, pieces of a second one.

Lamia is the older of the two, the last traces of a tongue once spoken on their homeworld. There’s very little of it left in existence. The entire corpus is comprised of little more than odd bits of poetry and the engravings of random trinkets.

Not many humans know it. Not many _vampires_ know it, apart from a few common phrases.

So of course Regis is about as fluent in it as a person can be.

It’s what he whispered to Geralt their first night together, and still does whenever the mood he wraps about himself is woven from tenderness and devotion. In those moments, he works his words into a subtle filigree, delicate auditory formations offered on breath after gentle breath. Geralt only understands some of it, but it’s clear what’s being said: it’s adoration given a voice.

The other language is decidedly different.

Its sound is both sinister and messy. The vowels twist and recoil in the strangest places. The consonants form barbs and chela, snagging in his ear.

Regis has only spoken it to him a few times before, but the effect has been _immediate_ every time. Maybe it’s less what Regis is saying than how he says it—and what he’s doing to Geralt at the time. Whatever the reason, Geralt’s conditioned to it now: a few words, and he’s completely, embarrassingly undone.

He doesn’t know the meaning of the words and he doesn’t care; the dark hiss of it, going from slippery to sharp and back again, tells him everything he needs to know about what he’s hearing.

They are words that bring the hearer to heel. They’re demands an owner makes of the owned.

It is language that dominates, and Geralt has started to crave it.

And yeah, that’s what Regis is speaking now.

Geralt is _fucked_. Literally and otherwise.

If the night is a battle between them—and, to be fair, it often is—then Regis is already the uncontested victor.

Now it’s really a matter of how long Geralt can hold out—when to strike back and when to surrender—to make it as pleasurable as it possibly can be for both of them.

To that end, he tries his best to look unimpressed when he opens eyes again; he can’t imagine the act is very convincing. Not when his cock just went unbelievably hard in the span of a few seconds.

“No idea what that means,” he says, trying for smugness.

Regis draws his hand away from Geralt’s face and makes a greedy clutching gesture roughly in the direction of the oil bottle on the nightstand.

“ _Tura eleivana mini_ ,” he commands, voice rasping. “ _Mi zini ara nac-um zu salvia tva._ ”

Geralt’s small vampiric vocabulary doesn’t prevent him picking up on Regis’s intent; it’s not as though he’s being particularly subtle.

It takes just about the all the willpower he has, but Geralt stabs his chin upward, exposing his throat: an action of defiance.

“Get it yourself,” he spits.

The vampire’s lip curls up—the prelude to a snarl—and he disappears in a shimmer of smoke.

The blanket is tossed violently away, fluttering to the floor. Before Geralt can move, mist twines about his ankles, damp and chilly, before it clamps down on him. He’s yanked down the bed, sending his feet flying off the edge of the mattress and his heart shooting up into his throat. He’d seen this happen to the guards at Dun Tynne, but never experienced it himself before, and the immediacy of the action, the raw power of it, catches him off guard.

Pillows go flying and the mattress dips above him as Regis appears again, knees astride Geralt’s head, cock jutting out in front of him, inches away from Geralt’s face.

_Gods._

Regis’s hands rest lightly on his hip bones, the calm of his demeanor betrayed only by the intense and overwhelming darkness of his eyes.

“I will use you as I see fit, _mis falthu_. Now…”

His ravenous gaze begins to slink down Geralt’s body, but stops sooner than the witcher would have imagined. He points, extending a finger at… the top edge of Geralt’s breastbone.

“Did you leave this on for me?” he asks, sounding darkly elated.

Geralt manages to tear his gaze away from Regis’s face—and other parts of him, more demanding of his attention—to glance down at his own chest.

Oh. His medallion. He’d almost forgotten about it.

He _had_ left it on on purpose, actually. After all their banter about his profession, he thought Regis might appreciate the symbol. From the sound of it, he wasn’t wrong.

He doesn’t nod, just smirks his assent. It’s not like Regis can’t tell what the answer is, anyway.

“Good,” Regis tells him approvingly. “ _Very_ good.”

In a move that’s both casual and calculated, he leans forward, reaching for the pendant, and in doing so, brushes his cock and balls carelessly across Geralt’s mouth, like the witcher is so much furniture.

It’s still a shock, both the velour softness of his skin and the searing heat of him, tugging at Geralt’s lips. He presses them shut out of spite, but he’s not sure he’s punishing anyone but himself at this point.

He’s only half listening at first, his mouth starting to water as he breathes in the vampire’s scent, when Regis covers the silver wolf’s head with his hand.

“Such a clever little bauble it is, too,” he coos.

And then… it vibrates.

Geralt stops breathing, stops _everything_ , going tense all over.

He can count on one hand the number of times Regis has made his medallion tremble and still have several fingers left over. And in all the years they’ve known each other, it’s never happened while Regis was in human form.

It hadn’t even occurred to Geralt that a vampire could trigger the thing’s ability _at will_.

“Inspiring,” Regis says, sounding eminently pleased with himself. He depresses the medallion into Geralt’s chest and makes it shake once more, harder this time.

It’s too late for him to suppress a reaction: Geralt’s lips part in surprise and he shudders.

Regis draws back at that, shifting his weight back onto his haunches, staring down at Geralt’s face again. His grin has gone positively malevolent.

“And look what I’ve done to your pretty mouth.”

He slides his finger just inside Geralt’s lower lip, the curve of his claw clicking softly as he runs it over the witcher’s teeth. The last shreds of Geralt’s insolence tell him to bite back, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it; instead he closes his eyes and submits, giving over to sensation.

Regis hums and presses against Geralt’s teeth, forcing his jaw open fractionally wider. “It really is lovely, you know,” he points out, sliding his fingers through the silver strands of Geralt’s beard, then raking his claws back up through them. “Despite your considerable efforts to hide it.”

The tip of his shaft bobs just over Geralt’s open mouth now, and Geralt’s losing himself in the heady scent of clean sweat and just a hint of earth; he has to curl his tongue back on itself to keep from licking up.

It’s a battle of wills, both a triumph and a torture in the mere act of resisting, and the space of heartbeats drags on for what feels like an age.

He can’t say who breaks first. Regis draws a deep breath and tilts forward a fraction of inch, but by then Geralt is already craning his neck up, lips and tongue coiling greedily around the tip of him, lapping at the bead of wetness he finds there.

Contact.

He hears Regis give up a breathy, broken little cry, just barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of his own moans.

Restraint falls away then, completely forgotten. Regis rolls his hips forward, thrusting into Geralt’s mouth, and Geralt closes his eyes, taking him in as quickly as he can, ravenous for the taste of him.

What’s strange about it is how strange it doesn’t feel.

When they started sleeping together, there was never a question in Geralt’s mind that he was going to give Regis head. He has always, _always_ loved getting his partners off. It didn’t really matter if he liked sucking cock or not, he reasoned, or if he had little practical experience with the act. If it gave Regis pleasure, he would do it whenever Regis liked, as much as he was asked to.

Somewhere the past month, though, he’s discovered that he actually kind of loves it. At first he thought it was just Regis’s considerable enthusiasm influencing him. But he’s found himself craving it all more and more: how big Regis feels when he takes him in his mouth, the blunted curves and the rigid thickness of him, how their similarities make it easy to imagine just how fucking good it feels. He _wants_ it now, not just for Regis, but for himself, too.

And as for experience... well, he’s been getting as much practice as he can. If the way Regis has been clawing at his hair these past few times is anything to go by, his technique is definitely improving.

Even now, as Regis rides his face, angling his himself just so, gliding back and forth over the soft wetness of Geralt’s tongue, Geralt just finds himself wishing Regis would fuck his mouth faster, deeper.

That can’t be anything but his own want talking; Regis seems determined to take his time—and drive Geralt out of his mind in the process.

A press of skin at the wet edge of his lips pulls him out of his thoughts. Regis is staring down at him like he’s both a pet and work of art. He’s gently touching himself and Geralt both, the tip of his finger bearing witness to the slide of his cock in and out of Geralt’s mouth.

The act makes Geralt’s hands clench; he’s grasping, clutching at nothing.

“You may touch yourself, if you wish,” Regis permits, voice only wavering a little when he says it.

Geralt doesn’t even pause, just reaches down and takes himself in his hand like he’s been told to.

He tugs at himself, but not too hard, not enough to work himself up to the point of no return. He holds back without even being ordered to do so, and he can feel it: the last vestiges of his obstinacy falling away.

He can’t fight for the sake of fighting anymore because, gods, he fucking _wants_ this: to let go, to be high on his own helplessness, to be nothing more than a collection of parts that add up to slightly less than human, but in a different way than usual.

He wants to be a _thing_. He wants to be ruined.

He does the only thing he can to tell Regis this, and sucks him harder. The vampire finally breaks at the waist, falling forward, planting a hand on Geralt’s stomach to steady himself. His breath is coming in audible waves now, pushed forward on distressed little vocalizations, his tranquil facade cracking at the edges for a moment.

He hears Regis take a deep breath, regaining his composure, and claws curl into Geralt’s abdomen. Regis’s free hand slides down to the witcher’s throat, index finger and thumb forming a broken ring just over his larynx: a makeshift collar. He squeezes gently, and Geralt pulls in as much air as he can through his nose, readying himself.

He relaxes and lets his jaw drop open even further, just as Regis shifts his stance and lowers himself all the way, squeezing himself into Geralt’s throat.

Even prepared for it, Geralt sputters and tries not gag as he lets Regis in. His whole world is reduced to feeling; he exists for this and this alone, for Regis pumping in and out of his mouth, colliding with the back of his throat, and it’s the most blissful kind of awful, to feel this filled, this used.

“It’s as though you were made for this,” Regis moans, sounding half untethered from himself. “Made for _me_.”

That’s… almost true, in some twisted way, Geralt thinks dimly. The stillness and focus he channels while Regis savages his mouth feels like the culmination of every minute of his meditation training, not to mention a perfect use of his extra lung capacity. His old masters back at Kaer Morhen would be horrified to know how he’s been using all those extra mutations they gave him. (Fucking _good_ , he thinks.)

That slightly bitter recollection distracts him just a little too long, and Regis thrusts just a little too deep; Geralt chokes for no longer than a second, and Regis begins to withdraw immediately. Geralt can feel his alarm, godsdamn him; he adores the man’s kindness, but he doesn’t fucking need kindness right now.

He tears his hands away from his crotch—he’d had to stop stroking himself anyway—and claws at Regis’s thighs.

Regis chuckles, and Geralt feels him relax again, slipping back into the role and into Geralt’s mouth. Geralt moans, sucking ardently as the vampire favors him with a few more thrusts.

“How eager you are,” he sighs, both arrogant and adoring at once. “I do hate to deprive you. But.”

And then he’s leaning back and pulling away, and Geralt is bereft of him suddenly, glassy-eyed and panting. He can only imagine what he looks like from the way Regis is staring at him: his lips, red and spit slick and swollen from the assault, parted as if he’s about to beg for more. He just might, if he could find the air to do it.

“I have other plans for you,” Regis husks out. “Kneel for me,” he orders.

Geralt blinks, his vision just starting to return to him. He’s lying there, having pulled in maybe two or three good breaths, when clawed fingers slide against his scalp and _grip_.

“I said, _kneel_.”

Regis yanks up fiercely, leveraging his hidden strength with a cool impassivity. Geralt grunts as he’s hauled up by his hair, scrambling to get his limbs underneath him.

The vampire tosses him forward, and he lands roughly on his hands and knees, the curtain of his hair falling down around his face. The leather lace tying it back must have come loose at some point; he has no idea when. He bows his head slightly and shuts his eyes, hands balling into fists.

He’s going to _die,_ and Regis is just getting started.

Talons ghost down his spine, whispering a threat of pleasure-pain, and a hand closes around the globe of his ass cheek possessively.

“You are _incredible_ ,” Regis tells him, all breathless appreciation, like he’s appraising an exotic creature he’s considering for purchase. “Every line, every curve of you.” He drags a knuckle down Geralt’s thigh languidly. “All your animal strength and deadly grace, here, beneath my hands, to do with as I please.”

As if to prove his point, he flicks the flesh of Geralt’s inner thigh twice, a none too gracious request for him to spread his legs wider.

Geralt’s lips pull back in a sneer, but he swallows the _fuck you_ hanging on his lips and complies, sliding his knees apart, widening his stance.

Regis gives him a low, vicious laugh, and leans down to gloat, his chest to Geralt’s back.

“You are _mine_ , witcher,” he says, beaming. “Entirely mine.”

Geralt can’t think of a single way he could disagree with that statement. He really, really is.

Warm blunt-tipped fingers trail down the crack of Geralt’s ass, gliding past his entrance, and he feels his balls draw up and his cock jump in anticipation. Regis is going to plough him blind and he’s so godsdamned _ready_ for it.

So it shocks the hell out of him when Regis’s hands dart between his legs, and _something_ slides underneath his balls, then loops back up around his cock twice, quickly pulled taut.

He looks down immediately to see… Regis tying off the leather lace ripped from his hair. The strip of calf skin is about the width of a finger, and Regis draws the knot just tight enough to pull him away from the plane of his body. He barely has time to register the welling pressure of it, to take in the sight of his own cock, hanging heavy and dark between his legs, when Regis’s hand returns, palm gleaming with oil, and glides over his balls and up his shaft in one smooth motion.

Reaching the tip of him, Regis twists his wrist deftly, adjusting his grip and wetly kneading the head before stroking back down, his oil-coated hands making the most obscene noise Geralt’s ever heard.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Geralt barks out, voice in tatters.

And then Regis does it again. And again, and again, working Geralt ruthlessly, efficiently, until he’s right at the edge.

Dimly, some tiny alarm goes off in the back of Geralt’s brain—this isn’t what he expected, not at all—but the rest of him is so fucking ready to come, he ignores it with ease.

He’s just about to fall headlong into release, when Regis pulls his hand away, and then there’s _nothing_.

Geralt’s eyes snap open. He nearly chokes at the loss of sensation—then actually does, as he’s pulled up by the chain around his neck and set back on his haunches.

He feels his medallion slip over his head, and before he can reach for it—or for Regis, for his cock, for _anything_ —the vampire snatches his hands, jerking them behind his back and gripping them both in one of his. Geralt struggles for half an instant, then gives up; it’s not Regis’s most secure grip, but he’s still threefold stronger than Geralt, at least. He might be able to tear away from this hold, but he won’t be free for long—not if Regis doesn’t want him to be.

Defeated, he sags back into the vampire, who kneels behind him. His cock bobs in front of him, throbbing painfully.

As roughhewn as Geralt’s voice makes it sound, the noise that’s wrung from him can’t be called anything else: he whimpers.

Regis laughs softly and nestles closer to him, letting his own cock rest in the cleft of Geralt’s ass.

He holds Geralt still against him for what seems like a godsdamned eternity, letting his breathing quiet and his stuttering hips still… And then Regis reaches down with his free hand and begins palming Geralt’s cock.

The witcher’s hips cant up wildly, and when Regis stops again, he’s not sure what the noise he makes this time is called, but he sure as fuck knows he’s never made it before.

“ _Mlaka ataine_ ,” Regis whispers in his ear, letting him feel the words as much as hear them, as he drives Geralt to the brink over and over. “ _Mlaka lethe_.”

When his hand falls away yet again, Geralt can’t focus on anything but the absolute aching agony between his legs; he can barely hear his own moans, let alone feel Regis shifting behind him.

It’s not until Regis draws his hand from behind Geralt’s back that he even has the wherewithal to open his eyes and see what the vampire is holding in his hand.

It’s his witcher medallion.

His mind lights up with comprehension just as Regis places the flat of the cool metal over his nipple and begins it vibrating softly.

He _whines,_ his toes curling into the mattress as he yanks ineffectually against Regis’s grip on him. Gods—fucking— _fuck_ —He can’t take much more of this—

Which is when Regis releases his wrists and darts his hand forward into Geralt’s lap, finding the end of the leather tie and pulling the knot free.

“ _Althra mini-ri_ ,” he hisses, and carefully cupping its sharp edges in his palm, slides the flat of the still trembling medallion behind Geralt’s balls as he strokes him.

Geralt comes so hard it’s almost painful, the feeling slamming into him so violently he feels like he’s been knocked clean out of his body. He hangs there, suspended in space, and for a fleeting moment he wonders what constellations he’s seeing now.

He comes back down—literally, having rocked up and forward on his knees at some point during his climax—and collapses back against Regis, unable to move, gasping for air.

Suddenly Regis’s hands are tangling in his hair and he’s speaking in a fast, low hush, weaving back and forth between Lamia and Vampiric, and while Geralt can barely handle Common at this point, he’s pretty sure at least half of it’s nonsense. But, he thinks dreamily, trying desperately to catch his breath, it sounds beautiful.

A moment’s calm hovers between them, then Regis kisses his temple and reaches away briefly. When his hand returns, diving down between their bodies, it’s drenched in oil again. Geralt can feel Regis giving himself a few quick pulls before letting his fingers—his dexterous, skillful, malefic fingers—slip lower and tease their way inside him.

He moans softly and relaxes; he doesn’t need much coaxing, but it feels nice, familiar, now, and—

Regis begins to curl his fingers, stroking him, _inside_ , petting him exactly where— _oh gods_ —

His cock is actually trying to respond, and, gods, it’s just too damn soon. His hands tense again, fingers curling around air—and then Regis withdraws his hand, arranges himself quickly, smoothly, and pushes into Geralt.

The thrust is steady and not exactly slow, but the lack of control is still nearly excruciating to Geralt. He tries to fall forward onto his hands to give himself leverage, someway to drive himself backward, but Regis catches him, locking an arm across his chest, and slides further in, keeping his own pace, until he’s completely buried in Geralt.

The witcher’s voice gutters as he bows his back into a deep arch.

Regis finally breaks, grabbing Geralt by the hair, snapping his hips fast and hard, pounding mercilessly into him. Letting go in his mind and body, he lets Regis hold him and rides every sensation: the way he’s wrapped around Regis’s cock, rocking in and out of him, Regis’s hip bones slamming into the curve of his ass, and his claws curling into Geralt’s scalp.

He’s starting to drift away from his body again—until, with a willpower Geralt cannot begin to fathom, Regis slows.

He adjusts Geralt’s position with expert precision, pulling him up into place, angling him just so, and just when Geralt is ready for another volley of thrusts, Regis grabs his cock.

Somehow, impossibly, he’s hard again.

 _Melitele have mercy_ , he thinks brokenly, profanely, _because Regis sure as hell won’t._

“ _Regis_ ,” Geralt begs, the name half a sob, “Regis, I _can’t_ —” This is _insane_ —he hasn’t been able to do this for years now—

“You can,” he growls, and thumbs Geralt’s cockhead while fucking him.

Geralt’s mind is fire, screaming at him that he cannot possibly come again, even as he feels himself moving closer to it, tightening around Regis.

It’s so much, fuck, it’s _too_ much; there are tears on his face and his vision is turning into noise for a second time, when Regis pulls him in close, catching the side of his mouth in needy contact that’s just as much bite as it is kiss.

“You’re _mine_ , witcher,” he says, the threat inseparable from the promise, and Geralt spills himself into Regis’s hand just as he feels Regis coming inside him.

* * *

Mind blowing sex always seems to have the effect of putting Geralt in a strangely philosophical mood, and this time is no different.

Lying there, collapsed in a heap on the mattress, chasing after air like it’s a creature he has a contract on, he knows logically that, at most, maybe fifteen seconds have passed. But if someone told him a week had gone by, he’d believe them completely.

Dazed, spent, absolutely destroyed in the best way possible, he wonders if this is how time feels to a vampire.

But sadly, despite the fact that he has one to hand that he could actually ask, his mouth is definitely not under his control yet, so the thought remains unspoken and eventually drifts away.

Regis finally inches closer to him, throwing an arm over his waist and hugging into his back.

“I trust,” he says, words a bit slurred, still sounding winded himself, “that was satisfactory? And made up for any delays you experienced?”

“ _Puh_ ,” says Geralt, and closes his eyes again. Actual sentences are going to be another minute or two, he reasons.

Regis quietly huffs a laugh. “Yes, well said. I agree completely. I thought you might enjoy that more than me simply...” Out of the corner of his eye, Geralt catches his rising hand as he flicks his wrist in a lazy, inarticulate gesture. “...tossing you about the room. Of course,” he pats Geralt’s obliques, a gesture of comfort, “I’m happy to oblige regarding that, too, when we’re no longer traveling.”

Geralt can’t begin to wrap his head around a next time; he can barely process what just happened.

“How—Did you—?” He shakes his head, face pushing into the mattress. “I have no idea how I—the second time—”

“Ah,” Regis says, voice suddenly bright. He pulls himself up, dangling an arm over Geralt’s hip, making eye contact as he rests on the witcher’s side.

“You know that strain of Nekker mutagens I had been working on refining with the use of the Mutagenerator?”

Geralt lifts his head up at that, staring Regis dead in the eyes. “You spiked my decoctions?” he asks. “For _fucking?_ ”

“Not _for_ that.” Regis scowls, looking a bit offended. “And not ‘spiked.’ I told you what I was doing, and gave you an indication of possible effects you might expect. A general metabolic resilience and increased stamina, in addition to—”

Geralt puts up a hand, vaguely remembering the conversation. “I didn’t know it was going to do… _that_.”

Regis makes lazy circles with his claw on the front of Geralt’s thigh. “Nor did I, not for certain. But I suspected.”

It sort of makes sense. Nekkers are vicious, tireless little bastards. And this explains why there are always so damn many of them, at any rate.

He leans on his elbow, contemplating, his train of thought rapidly becoming less philosophical and more scientific.

Gods, he’d taken that last decoction sample from Regis _days_ ago.

“How… how many times… do you think I could—?”

The smile Regis gives him is comprised entirely of teeth and joy.

“I wouldn’t dare hazard a guess,” he answers, “without extensive, rigorous experimentation. Oh! Speaking of which.”

His exclamation is paired with a turn as he reaches up toward the head of the bed, grasping at something.

When he settles back in place atop Geralt, he’s holding the witcher’s medallion, letting it bounce on its chain.

Geralt fights down a flicker of amused embarrassment. It’s bad enough Regis has reduced his title to a form of dirty talk. Now every time he catches sight of his medallion…

He clears his throat. “Yeah?”

“What do you know about this alloy? Could more of it be obtained? As much as I adore debasing this symbol of your profession, the shape is somewhat unwieldy.” Regis throws his other arm over the witcher’s midsection and takes the amulet in both hands, turning it over, examining it. “I was thinking, with the help of a discreet metalsmith, we could have a long, thin core of it crafted—” He gestures about the length he means, guiding Geralt’s imagination to an absolutely obscene place. “And have it set inside a larger casing—”

Geralt feels his cock twitch yet again and lets his arm slide out from behind his head, collapsing back down.

“Regis,” he groans. “You are going to _kill_ me.”

He feels a gentle hand set against the center of his chest, and a kiss pressed into his side, followed by the rumble of a chuckle.

“Absolutely not,” Regis reassures him. “I’m a doctor before I’m anything else. It would be unethical to cause you harm… well, harm you didn’t ask for, anyway.” More kisses are placed into his ribcage, which would probably tickle him if he was capable of such a feeling. As it is, it’s just nice. Relaxing. He could get used to this. He might already be.

“I will take care of you any way you’ll let me, my dear,” Regis says, draping himself over the witcher once more.

Geralt smiles, muzzy-minded, when bits of what he’s just heard and felt—the parts about _taking care of,_ and Regis draping himself, both—echo in his brain.

“Hey.” He points vaguely behind them. “There’s something for you. On the nightstand.”

“What?” Regis sits up, voice pitching up in surprise. “For me?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Geralt confirms. “See any other skinny naked vampires around here?”

He hears Regis move to the nightstand and grab the parcel, then pace around the bed to sit at its foot, just in front of Geralt’s knees. “What is…?”

Geralt just smiles. He hopes it’s not too ridiculous.

The paper falls away, and Regis gives a little gasp. “Oh Geralt,” he sighs, shaking the garment free of the wrapping, “It’s _beautiful_.”

The robe he purchased, along with the others of its kind in the market, was almost certainly made for a woman. Geralt had a devil of a time picking the pattern; most of them were garishly bright, covered in loud floral patterns. Even in the best of circumstances, fashion isn’t something he’s ever considered himself an expert in.

But as the vampire holds up the one Geralt chose, admiring it, he knows he made the right decision.

The charcoal gray silk is hand painted with a tiny, understated motif of muted blue-purple blossoms with grey-green leaves. The cut is square and plain, too, unlike some of the others, lacking any lace or other embellishments. The only possible fault Geralt can see is its size; it may not hang at the correct length, given that it was crafted with someone of a shorter stature in mind.

“This is Hanni silk,” Regis says, marvelling.

“Uh huh,” Geralt confirms, finally sitting up, reaching for the edge of a sleeve. “I just thought you might…” He drags the hem of the garment over the interior of Regis’s wrist, demonstrating his intent rather than speaking it, and is rewarded with the sight of a shiver rippling through his lover’s entire body.

“You thought correctly,” Regis says, his voice a tendril of smoke.

He stands and slips it on, letting it fall around his slim frame before tying the sash at his waist. The breadth of his shoulders pulls it just a little tight across the neck, exposing his collarbones. The bottom edge falls just above mid-thigh, the pale lines of Regis’s legs disappearing teasingly under the curtain of dark fabric.

Geralt feels his pupils go fractionally wider; he was both right and wrong in the best ways possible. It is both too small and fits _perfectly_.

“That looks—”

That’s as far as he gets before there’s a swish of silk, and he finds himself with an armful of vampire kissing him nearly back to breathlessness.

“Thank you,” Regis whispers against his lips. “I adore it.”

Words he hasn’t said yet thrum in Geralt’s mind.

It’s still too soon, he thinks, curling his fingers into the silk at Regis’s waist instead.

* * *

Geralt dreams.

He dreams of a young woman with dark hair, and a golden palace whose towers stretch up to the sun.

The sky goes white as the sun turns black.

And then there’s nothing.

* * *

He awakens to a sound. An insistent tapping from the nightstand.

His medallion: it's trembling.

Perhaps anyone else would find that funny, given what it's just been used for.

But the memory of one round of bedroom antics is hardly enough to replace his hard won caution, an awareness drilled into him by deadly threats over a span of seven decades.

So Geralt doesn't smile when he hears it.

It's one of the very first things he learned on the Path.

His medallion is trembling—no, _shaking_.

And that means bad things are coming.

It happens in little more than a second.

He sniffs the air before his eyes are open. There's nothing he doesn't expect to smell there: sex, scented oil, and Regis—specifically, fresh herbs and petrichor.

Wait. No. Not petrichor.

Not upturned soil near rainwashed flowers.

Graveyard loam and fresh arterial blood.

It smells like death. It smells like Tesham Mutna.

He flicks his eyes to the window first, then to the door, and, seeing nothing in either place—no intruder, corporeal or otherwise—he snaps his focus immediately to Regis.

The vampire lies beside him, facing him. He still appears to be asleep, but strained murmurs slip past his lips. His arm twitches and his fingers grasp the sheets. His face contorts, seemingly in pain.

A nightmare, maybe.

Geralt knows better than to try and reach out; anyone who did the same to him would get a broken nose for their trouble, or worse if they weren't lucky.

"Regis,” he whispers.

The medallion rattles against the nightstand harder still; he can hear the sound shifting as it jumps closer to the edge, about to fall.

Regis whines, twisting and pulling away from him.

Geralt doesn't have time to question the impulse, only to act on it.

He shoves as hard as he can against the mattress, pushing himself backward off the bed and sending himself sprawling onto the floor, just as his medallion falls along with him.

Five razor sharp claws, each a foot in length, slash into the bed where he'd been laying a moment before.

His own fingers are already twisting, forming the Sign of _Quen_ as he scrambles up to sitting, trying to figure out what's happening.

Snarling and hissing, completely shifted into his vampire form, Regis swings wildly two more times, hitting both the bed and the edge of the shielding spell, sending golden sparks flying.

Geralt draws back further, moving out of striking distance as he attempts to get to his feet.

“Regis! Wake _up!_ _Regis!_ ”

Two more wild blows, but Regis isn't getting up in pursuit, striking instead from his reclining position on the bed, and Geralt takes a second to watch him in relative safety as he thrashes.

His eyes are clouded, unseeing, and it's clear he's not trying to attack Geralt.

He's not trying to attack anyone.

He's defending himself.

“ _Regis_ ,” he tries again. “ _Stop_. Dammit, you're all right.”

The lines etched into Regis's mousy face are pulled taut in another snarl. He stabs downward, ripping into the sheets and tearing a hole in the mattress, sending an explosion of feathers into the air.

Shit. He has to snap Regis out of this.

It's a risky move, but he doesn't see any other choice.

Holding _Quen_ in front of him, he pushes into the vampire's space and grabs for his left wrist, securing it and pinning it across his chest and down into the mattress just as the shield gives way. Regis’s claws catch the front of his open robe, shredding the lapel as they sink through the thick layer of down, momentarily sticking there.

This would be _suicide_ with any other vampire. Hells, it might still be. Regis could disappear out from under him or throw him off without a thought. He's counting on the fact that Regis's reactions are slower than normal in this sleep-dazed state, and more importantly, that he'll wake up and see what he's doing.

Regis hisses again, but doesn't try to flee. He does try to lash out, however.

Even trapped under his own body, his right arm is a danger: the claws give him a significant advantage to his reach.

Regis strikes upward, blindly stabbing out at whoever would bind him.

Geralt is helpless. He's naked, weaponless. With his hands occupied, he can't even Sign.

He winces, twisting away from the claws speeding toward him, and offers the only thing he has left.

“Regis, _it's me_.”

Stillness. Silence except for heavy breathing.

Regis's voice rumbles in the low register produced by his vampire form, but it’s still somehow very small when he speaks.

“Geralt...?”

Geralt opens his eyes to see Regis shifting back to his human form beneath him, brows unfurrowing. A look of absolute horror dawns on his face.

Yanking his left hand into his chest, he covers it with his right, both of them now tipped with normal human nails.

He's gone, then, coiling into slate grey mist, tearing across the room.

Geralt breathes deeply as he settles himself, kneeling amidst the ruined bedclothes. He watches Regis reform, standing near the opposite wall, as far away from him as the dimensions of the room will allow.

He holds himself awkwardly, arms wound tightly over his chest, covering his mouth with his hand. The breaths he releases into his palm are ragged, uneven. Even in the darkness, Geralt can see the red-stained whites of his wide eyes.

“I'm so sorry,” he whispers through his fingers. “Oh, gods, I—”

He bows his head and shuts his eyes, anguished.

Geralt opens his mouth, not sure what he’s about to say, when there’s a frantic knocking on the door.

He glances toward the sound, then to Regis, who looks too lost within himself to respond.

He’s across the room in three long strides, throwing the bolt open.

The Innkeep doesn’t even get a word in before Geralt waves a hand in front of his face, flexing and folding his index finger and pinky. A little white glow is emitted from his palm, reflecting in the man’s eyes.

“I tripped over a side table,” Geralt says. “Everything's fine. Tell anyone else who asks.”

“Glad to hear you're fine, sir,” the Innkeep repeats back vacantly, eyelids falling half shut. “I'll tell anyone else who asks.”

Geralt half expects to find the room empty when he turns back.

But Regis is there, kneeling, having crumpled to the floor. He pulls the robe tighter around himself instinctively, a small measure of comfort. But when his fingers catch the tattered lapel, Geralt sees his eyes go even wider; the world shifts from underneath him again as he takes in the damage, realizing exactly how close he came to doing something far, far worse. He sinks down even further, the air expelled from his lungs in a painful rush.

Geralt rushes to cross to him, but Regis raises the hand he's not leaning on in protest, stopping the witcher mid stride.

“ _Don't_ ,” he pleads, wincing at the too loud stab of his wrecked voice cutting through the stillness.

He’s silent for long seconds, his breathing the only sound in the room; when he speaks again, his words are almost too soft to hear, even with witcher senses.

“I... I nearly… You're the only thing I—and I almost—”

Every muscle in Geralt’s body tenses, his need to run to Regis’s side raking into him as he resists it, trying to give the vampire the space he seems to need in order to steady himself.

But his words—gods, the words he loves so much—they stagger forward, wounded, crashing to the ground, again and again; the fracture lines are beginning to show in his carefully crafted veneer of composure.

“I—” Regis starts, then covers his mouth, aghast. His breathing stops altogether.

“Oh gods, he's dead,” he murmurs into his palm. “I killed him.”

And suddenly, it’s very, very clear to Geralt what Regis’s nightmare was about.

What every uncomfortably quiet moment, odd hesitation, and distant stare of the past month has been about.

They were few and far between, it seemed, but now Geralt is watching them come together with alarming impact, crushing Regis under their weight.

“I killed him,” Regis says again, louder this time, his voice shattering over the sharp edge of his grief. “Oh gods, I _killed_ him—”

Making a mask of both his hands, Geralt hears him take an enormous, faltering breath just before he breaks altogether, sobs racking the whole of his body.

He is kneeling at Regis’s side before he pulls in the next painful gasp, gathering him in up his arms, and the vampire doesn’t fight him this time, falling into his embrace.

He repeats his crime, confessing it over and over, like he desperately hopes that if he says it enough, someone will come and punish him for it.

And Geralt just holds him.

Yen has cried in front of him exactly one time, when they’d both thought they were about to die. And Ciri, with him and Yen as her role models, isn’t exactly free with her softer emotions either.

Comforting someone like this, letting them fall so completely apart, is new to him. And yet somehow it’s not surprising at all that it should be Regis who brings him to a place that’s so deeply vulnerable and so very human.

“I didn't know what to—he wasn't going to _stop_ ,” he pushes the mangled words out. “I didn't think he would—but then he wouldn't stop, and I couldn't _lose_ you.” His arms go tight around Geralt’s chest. “Not after—” He shakes his head, his wet cheek sliding against Geralt’s collarbone. “I couldn't _lose_ you,” he says again.

Geralt knows just what Regis means.

He’d held Ciri’s nearly lifeless form in his arms on the Isle of Mists.

He lit the pyre at Vesemir’s funeral.

He saw the bodies—or what was left of them—at Stygga castle. Including Regis’s.

He knows about losses that are too hard to bear. Losses you’d do terrible, unspeakable things to prevent.

He knows, and he holds Regis even tighter.

 _I will take care of you_ _any way you’ll let me_ , Geralt thinks, and places a kiss on top of Regis’s head.

Unwinding himself achingly slowly from Geralt’s embrace, Regis pulls back from him, staring up at him beseechingly, like he’s lost. Like he’s expecting Geralt to say something.

But Geralt’s not a master of languages. At times, he feels he can barely handle his native tongue.

So he takes Regis’s face in his hands, and presses his lips as gently as he possibly can to Regis’s, tasting the salt of his tears.

And Regis kisses him back. Haltingly at first, then more firm, but still infinitely slowly; Geralt just follows along, letting him set the tempo.

Gradually, his mouth begins to work against Geralt’s with a quiet, fierce neediness. He kisses like he’s trying to teach his mouth to memorize the shape of Geralt’s, like he’s begging Geralt not to leave him.

Regis’s panic is spilling over into him; almost without realizing he’s doing it, Geralt slides a hand from Regis’s cheek to just below his chin, tucking it below his jaw to find—

 _“No.”_ Regis breaks the contact, turning his head sharply as he pushes Geralt’s hand down. “I’m not—”

He twists his whole body away from Geralt, his chin falling to his chest, spine bowing forward under the weight of shackles Geralt can’t see.

Geralt drags in a deep breath through his nose, hands collapsing into fists, and draws himself up to standing.

Right.

His feet want to pull him to the door and out into the night—doesn’t matter where, just… somewhere else. Anywhere, just to clear his head.

But he’s on thin ice with the Innkeep as it is; if he runs into him or another guest, it’s going to take more than _Axii_ to keep their attentions from the room for the rest of the night.

He sits on the edge of the bed, burying his face in his hands.

Gods. This is a fucking mess.

What in the nine hells just happened?

It’d be all too easy to listen to that voice in his head, the familiar one, tired but wary. The one saying, _this is what happens when you let your guard down around monsters, Wolf._

But whatever happened to Regis, whatever made him lash out that way… That wasn’t his fault. Call it intuition, witcher senses, something more... He knows that couldn’t have been a normal dream. He’s not sure vampires usually even _have_ dreams.

He doesn’t blame Regis in the slightest.

Unfortunately he doubts Regis feels the same, and right now, Geralt’s not sure there’s much he can do to change his mind.

He should get dressed, check the room for signs of tampering. Couldn’t be anything physical—he’d have heard it. Could be magical...? Hard to trace a spell without supplies, but maybe—

He looks up—

—to see Regis, standing immediately in front of him.

He’s calmer now, breathing quiet and even, but his gaze is fixed to the floor.

“Do you want me to go?” he asks, his voice like the embers of a dying fire.

With no pause, no hesitation, Geralt shakes his head.

There’s no reason Geralt can see for Regis to leave. There’s very little they can actually do right now, and he’s not afraid of Regis attacking him again. Not tonight.

“Stay,” he offers, holding out his open hand. “Stay.”

Regis is still a moment, then nods once, and, still not meeting Geralt’s eyes, pulls at the sash of his robe.

The pale strip of skin running down the front of him widens, and silk coasts over and off his shoulders, pooling on the floor.

Never looking away, Geralt takes his hand and guides him back into bed, sliding back into place himself.

He expects nothing more than shared sleep—he hadn’t expected even that, truly; he assumed Regis would have silently taken his leave once more. So it catches him entirely off guard when Regis places a stilling hand on his leg, stopping him before he reaches his side of the bed.

Regis crawls toward him, and Geralt can’t quite believe his eyes. It’s such a small thing, but Regis doesn’t crawl. Ever. There’s no distance too small for him not to utilize his mist form.

And yet, even on all fours, with downcast eyes and worry lines around his mouth, despair in the set of his hips and the angle of his shoulders, there’s still an unconscious grace in his movement. He’s a visiting spirit made manifest before Geralt. He’s moonlight and sorrow.

He stops when he reaches the join of Geralt’s legs, and settles himself on his elbows between them.

“You don’t have to—” Geralt tells him.

“I want to.” For all that there’s a touch of sadness in the whisper, there’s resolution, too, and honesty.

Cautiously, Geralt lies back, never for a second letting his eyes leave Regis, studying him for signs of distress. He’s not worried for his own sake, even if the little voice in his head is telling him perhaps he should be. But he’s concerned for Regis.

The vampire sets a hand on his inner thigh and squeezes gently, reassuringly, before nuzzling the warm, soft flesh of him, easing a hand beneath his balls and stroking his knuckles against the delicate skin there.

He drags his lower lip over Geralt’s head coaxingly, and it isn’t long before Geralt feels himself stiffen, growing fuller and longer under Regis’s careful ministrations.

Painting the newly restored length of him with a wet sweep his tongue, Regis arrives at the tip of his cock and draws it into his mouth, and Geralt has to lose sight of him for a moment, his head tipping back and his eyes closing as he gives up a little moan.

Regis works him alternatingly with his mouth and hands, with all his usual precision, and apart from the absence of his usual impish cheerfulness, he seems almost fully recovered; Geralt’s perplexed—or at least, he would be, if he could focus.

He’s panting when Regis pulls off of him, pushing up from the mattress. Geralt looks down at him as feathers drift around him, stirred up in his wake.

He reaches up toward Geralt, toward the nightstand, and Geralt obligingly retrieves the little vial for him.

It’s a little surprising, this swift turn toward intimacy, but it doesn’t strike him as strange necessarily. Using the physical to reconnect, to mend wounds words can’t, is not at all unfamiliar to Geralt. 

But for Regis, this quiet urgency, this communication enacted in touch and taste alone, is new.

Geralt just wants to take care of him, to let him know he’s wanted.

He’s about to drop his legs open further, when Regis runs his oil coated palm over Geralt’s cock, stroking him gently. He’s barely had time to inhale when Regis moves again, continuing his procession up Geralt’s body, climbing past his thighs.

He straddles Geralt, just about at his hips, and—

 _Oh_.

Geralt’s mouth is still hanging open silently when Regis reaches back, taking him in his hand.

Locking his eyes onto Geralt’s, he moves slowly and with deliberation, giving the witcher every chance to object, to stop him should he wish to.

But Geralt only watches as Regis shifts himself into position, and, in a single fluid movement, sinks down onto Geralt’s cock.

Oh _fuck._

Chin tipped skyward, eyes falling shut, Regis releases a stuttering moan of relief as he bottoms out. Gods, he feels fucking incredible, gripping Geralt from root to tip.

Cautiously, Regis places his hands on Geralt’s stomach to steady himself, and begins to move, rolling his hips ever so slightly and squeezing Geralt at the top of the motion, stroking him perfectly.

Fighting through his pleasure-hazed vision, and the sheer shock of it all, it takes Geralt a moment to let his focus settle on Regis’s face again.

But once he does, he stops his own hips completely, and blinks his eyes wide.

Regis looks… pained isn’t the right word, exactly. He’s enjoying himself on some level—he’s hard, his cock tilting in front of him with his every move, and little noises escape him in between shallow gasps.

But his mouth is drawn down in a near-grimace and his hands have balled into fists. There’s something at war within him. He looks like he’s holding himself together at the seams, holding on for dear life—

And it snaps into place for Geralt.

Regis must think—especially after what just happened—

Gods, he has to tell him. It’s not too soon. He should’ve said it ages ago.

Regis stills, no doubt feeling Geralt tensing beneath him, and when he opens his eyes, a flicker of dread passes through them, and he looks away quickly.

Geralt sets his palm over the curve of Regis’s knee.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Regis. Look at me. All right? It's just me.”

Regis does as he’s bid, but with an obvious reluctance. He really has no idea what Geralt is thinking for once, does he?

Geralt takes a deep breath.

“I love you,” he says. “ _All_ of you. Okay?”

Regis opens his mouth, as if he’s about to protest. Geralt squeezes his hand on the vampire’s knee softly.

“Not going anywhere. So let go,” he whispers. “If you need to let go... let go.”

The corners of Regis’s eyes crinkle and his irises are suddenly shiny; Geralt thinks he might be getting teary again. Gods, was that not the right thing to say? Did he just fuck this up?

But then a look of determination settles into Regis’s face. He gives Geralt one more fixed stare, a last opportunity to flee.

Geralt doesn’t move a muscle.

Seemingly satisfied that Geralt knows what he’s asking for, Regis tilts his head up slowly and shuts his eyes, drawing his hands away from Geralt’s abdomen.

Inhaling deeply, the change washes over him. Deep creases carve their way into the frame of his face, and his skin pebbles, taking on a sanguine cast. His ears lengthen to sharp points as his jaw reworks itself to fit his enormous upper incisors and canines.

He shifts forms _around_ Geralt, and the witcher can feel him changing, still seated deep inside of him. It’s indescribably intimate, and a reversal of every fairy tale Geralt’s ever heard: a declaration of love changing his beloved not from a monster, but to one.

It’s obviously not the first time he’s seen Regis in this form—the incident from less than half an hour ago is still fresh in his mind—but it is the first time he’s really gotten a close look at him this way.

And it’s the first time he’s seen Regis naked in this form, too.

 _He’s so damn strong_ , Geralt thinks, the power he carries concealed within him fully on display for once in taut lines of tensing muscle. The spray of dark flecks covering the skin at his hairline and below his chin cascade down to his collarbones before tapering off, starting again at the low swell of his belly, clustering around the patch of hair covering his groin.

Geralt lets his eyes trail even further down, and… oh, gods.

Heavy and rigid, Regis’s cock bobs tantalizingly in front of him, also having undergone something of a transformation. The darkening shaft swells at the base, curving gently out and then back in, prominent lines of muscle and vein sweeping up to an elongated and tapered tip.

The shape alone gives it an irresistible alien elegance, but even more enticing are the striking rows of protruding ridges just below the rim of the head, sloping up in the center and then back toward his body.

Geralt _immediately_ wants to know what they’d feel like under his tongue or, gods, being teased in and out of him—

His wandering thoughts are dispersed by a grunt—no, a laugh—from Regis, who rolls his hips under him just once, snapping Geralt back to attention. The witcher groans a laugh, chastised, bringing his focus back to the pleasures of the moment.

Dragging his gaze back up Regis’s body, he notices there are things about him that haven’t changed as well: a mole on his right cheek, and another on his left hip, both of which Geralt’s kissed nearly a hundred times. The shape of his clavicle. The curving divot between his lower lip and his chin.

Even the familiar look of wry amusement that had vacated his eyes since reawakening is beginning to fall back into place—which is when Geralt realizes he must be grinning like a damn idiot now.

“C'mon, lemme see you,” he coaxes, daring to let his voice have a hint of a tease in it. “Show me your claws.”

The smile is a little hard to make out at first, the shape of it not as distinct as on his human face. But Geralt manages to spot it just before Regis unleashes a low, feral growl that resonates through his entire body, sending a tremor down the length of Geralt’s cock, making him shiver.

Regis presents his hands, fanning out his fingers in front of him gracefully, letting his claws extend to their full length before clacking them together. The metallic sound sings out savagely, sending a frisson of lust down Geralt’s spine and making his hips jump.

Moving slowly enough to let Geralt anticipate the strike, Regis draws back both arms before letting his claws fly. Geralt pulls his own arms up and out of the way just as the knife-sharp points are buried into the already wrecked mattress on either side of his ribcage. Geralt hears the wood of the bed frame crack and splinter beneath him, and for a frantic moment he worries Regis has sliced clean through to the floorboards below.

But those fears dissipate like so much mist as Regis leans toward him, his snarling countenance taking up the whole of his vision.

He bares his teeth, snorting a hot breath into the witcher’s face… and bears down on Geralt, squeezing him with every bit of his inhuman strength.

Geralt has to bite back a shout—and _that’s_ when Regis grips into the bed and starts to ride him.

_Oh, fuck._

He takes his own advice to Regis, then, and just lets _go_ , lets Regis use him, closing his eyes and just giving over to feeling. Regis arches his back on every undulation, driving Geralt deeper into him, that gorgeous ass of his bouncing against the join of Geralt’s thighs.

The pressure builds as Regis grinds against him, fucking him harder, faster. Even having come twice already, Geralt knows he won’t last much longer; the hot, tight slickness surrounding him is overwhelming.

There’s a dangerous scrape of teeth against his jawline, and his eyes fly open, meeting wide black ones with fiery red reflected in them—he’s never noticed that before—demanding his attention.

 _Gods, Regis,_ he thinks. His Regis. He’s beautiful.

And then, less sentimentally—or perhaps simply with sentiment transformed:

_Rigorous experimentation, hmm?_

He strikes without warning, hands magnetized to Regis’s sides, kneading greedily into the flesh of his underwing, at the same time as he digs his heels into the mattress and drives his hips up, hammering into Regis from below.

Regis throws back his head in a silent roar, beyond the range of even witcher hearing, and comes on Geralt’s chest, spending himself in thick, ropy spurts, and Geralt has just enough time to smirk before falling back into oblivion himself.

* * *

Neither of them moves afterward, Regis having simply collapsed on his chest, spent and panting.

Geralt, too, is gloriously wrecked.

They are both sticky and wet and utterly filthy and he cannot stop smiling.

(If every near death encounter with a monster ended this way, there’d be no shortage of people volunteering to become witchers.)

He pries open his eyes again, peering down at Regis, and catches sight of the gentle curves and smooth pallor of his skin, his human guise back in place.

Reluctant as he is to disturb his lover, gorgeously debauched and curled perfectly around him, he needs to make sure Regis is all right. That was one hell of a fuck—but the incident that preceded it was even more intense.

He lightly brushes a hand up Regis’s spine, making soothing circles at the base of his neck. “Hey. You okay?”

Regis nods, his cheek sliding against Geralt’s chest in unspoken affirmation.

“You sure?” Geralt half frowns, leaning up further, trying to get a better look at Regis’s face. “You're so... quiet.”

Regis finally stirs, shifting away and letting Geralt withdraw from him, sending one last echoed ripple of pleasure through the witcher’s body.

He leans on his elbow and looks about for something to clean them up with before taking in the state of the bed; finally he grabs the far corner of the sheet to wipe himself down with, fastidiousness apparently fucked completely out of him.

“Just… thoughtful.” He gives Geralt a final once over with the sheet, then tosses it aside and regards the witcher with tired eyes.

“I'm sorry. For earlier. I've never... That's never happened before. Not at all. I have no idea what could’ve caused me to—I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“It’s fine,” Geralt tells him, because all things considered, it really is. His previous joking thought aside, he wouldn’t have lasted this long as a witcher if he couldn’t handle a certain constant amount of danger in his life. “I almost die all the time.”

“Not because of _me_ ,” Regis says harshly, his mouth twisting in bitter anguish at even having to make such a clarification.

He sighs. “I don’t believe I could live with myself if I hurt you,” he whispers, sounding worryingly serious about every word in that sentence. “I... I don't wish to dwell on it. Suffice to say if you don't want to sleep in the same bed anymore, I'd—”

Geralt turns on his side and cups a hand to Regis’s face. He’d hoped the romantic confession and subsequent lovemaking would’ve made his intentions clear. But if Regis needs further reassurance, Geralt is only too happy to indulge him.

“Not on your life. There’s no way that was your fault,” he says, adamant. “We’ll figure out what happened. Besides,” he smirks, “if you were trying to kick me out of bed, you _really_ shouldn't have gone and let me fuck you.”

He shakes his head in wonder, amazed that any of this night happened, is still happening. “Do you always change? When—?”

Regis shakes his head, pulling Geralt’s hand away from his face, but not releasing it. “No, of course not. It’s not like throwing a switch. But.” He pauses, clearly shuffling through phrases, trying to find the right one for his explanation. “Any situation that presents an opportunity to… _let go_ , as you put it, means there’s a possibility that…” He chuckles sardonically.

“Two sentences or less, right?” he teases. At last, he says, “Sometimes it’s nicer, easier... if I don’t have to think about it.

“Besides,” he continues, a frown working its way back into the corner of his mouth. “I’ve been… off lately. Felt a bit... unstable.” He looks down at their joined hands, squeezing Geralt’s fingers, his expression contrite. “I should have told you. I didn’t wish to trouble you. But I see now that was a rather unfortunate choice on my part.”

“First human relationship jitters?” Geralt tries, his tone artificially light.

Regis releases a short bitter laugh, exhaling through his nose.

“More first time anathema concerns,” he says gravely. “I still think often about…”

As he trails off, Geralt catches it in his eyes: a stab of pain, like the ones he witnessed in Nazair—that time in the barn, and when the girl handed him that rose. But now it flickers past in that deep red color he’d spied for the first time only minutes ago.

Then he shuts his eyes, closing the curtain on Geralt’s view of that too deep wound.

“But you’re so uncomfortable with me talking about my former companions,” he says, voice quiet and raw.

“ _Oh_.” Geralt blinks, something in his chest constricting suddenly. _Shit_. “I didn’t mean…” He waits for Regis to look at him again, staring squarely into his eyes. “You can tell me, okay? Anything, anytime. If you want.”

Regis opens his mouth, then closes it almost immediately, shaking his head.

“Perhaps later,” he says, retreating, and Geralt can tell it’s not only his own teasing at fault for Regis’s reticence. It’s just too soon for him to have healed at all from what he’s been through.

Geralt does understand. In some twisted way, it was lucky that he still had the Hunt to contend with after Vesemir’s death: something tangible to chase, a murderer to hunt down.

But there’s nothing to be done about Syanna, and everyone else responsible for Dettlaff’s death is lying in this bed.

“I do wonder,” Regis tries again, with more of his typical scientific curiosity imbued in the words, “if trying to hide my feelings as well as my form may have led to that… ah… outburst.”

Geralt raises his eyebrows and runs his hand down Regis’s arm affectionately.

“Well, that’s one problem solved, then. _Gods_ , Regis,” he says, awed. “That was…”

He blows out a long breath between his lips. There aren’t really words to describe what that was. None Geralt knows, anyway.

Regis looks pleased—if timid—about the change in topic. “You... liked it? You didn't mind?” he asks, sounding hopeful.

“Didn't _mind?”_ Geralt parrots back in shock, eyes popping. “ _Regis,”_ is all he can say, his tone hovering somewhere between sympathy and reprimand. He just shakes his head, incredulous. “No, I didn't mind. I—”

He laughs quietly. How can he say he’s pretty sure he’s never been more aroused in his life?

“I _definitely_ didn't mind,” he says finally, threading his fingers through Regis’s hair. “It’s not like I hadn’t seen you before. Hell, I saw you all the way back at Stygga castle.”

“Seeing and acknowledging what I am is one thing,” Regis protests, still not completely letting his guard down. “Intimacy is... quite another.”

Geralt supposes that might be true for someone who hadn’t spent the better part of their formative years in the libraries at Kaer Morhen and Melitele’s temple in Ellander. It was not a substantial leap for his teenage mind to make from the subjects of certain kinds of etchings to others—even he wasn't entirely aware of it at the time.

“You thought I'd... what, be afraid?”

“Yes. Or repulsed, or…” Regis shrugs, forcing nonchalance. “What human wouldn't be?”

The answer is on the tip of Geralt’s tongue before he can stop himself; his own internal resistance dismantled, it’s all too easy now to fall into the words.

He sets a finger under Regis’s chin, drawing it up fractionally.

“One who loves you,” he says, leaning in and planting a kiss on Regis’s lips.

He means it to be little more than a quick peck, but Regis catches his jaw and holds him, drawing out the contact. When he pulls away, he’s smiling as wide as Geralt’s seen in hours.

“Be careful, witcher,” he says, voice low. “If you keep saying that, you'll never be rid of me.”

“Thanks for the warning, _cordis carmen_ ,” Geralt says, giving Regis’s pet name for him a try, the mouthfeel of the words foreign and a little formal. “But I'll take my chances.”

If Regis objects to Geralt’s use of his ancestral tongue, or is displeased with his pronunciation, it doesn’t show in the slightest. If anything, when he closes his eyes this time, it looks as though it’s because he can barely contain his joy.

Before Geralt can kiss him again, however, he blinks them back open suddenly, remembering something.

“I should say: I love you, too. In case that was even _slightly_ unclear.”

Geralt smiles, warmth blooming in his belly. He’d pretty much thought that was the case, but it’s still awfully nice to hear.

But Regis continues on, giving up a wry little laugh, eyes darting away.

“I’ve loved you for so long,” he confesses, “I’d nearly forgotten it was something I could say aloud now.”

It takes all Geralt’s restraint not to pull back in surprise.

“What?”

Regis can’t mean what Geralt thinks he means. But the vampire has never been one to abuse the phrase ‘so long’, either.

That... can’t possibly be true, can it?

“ _Geralt.”_ Now it’s Regis’s turn at fond admonishment, apparently. “I wouldn't dare to use so hackneyed a phrase as ‘at first sight.’ But you don’t _die_ for someone you don’t—”

He trails off, pursing his lips.

“How about,” he starts again, smiling this time, “I leave it at ‘I love you, too,’ hmm?”

And even easier than the words, the soft confessions that no one else hears, Geralt finds himself pulled along into Regis, into warm caresses and increasingly sleepy kisses, and an earned understanding that doesn’t require language at all.

He parts yet another kiss, and thinks lazily about how perfect it would be to never have to leave this room.

For several reasons.

Regis is apparently following a similar line of thought.

“What are we going to do about the bed?” he asks, clearly wishing he didn’t have to.

Geralt sighs, feeling his brain slowing to a crawl, nearly as spent as his body.

“Nothing, tonight. Well,” he amends lightly, “you might have to… take care of the Innkeep if he comes back. I don't think my Signs will be enough to convince him we didn’t just… ah… do... what we did.”

Regis shivers at the memory of it, then bites his lip and nods, apparently finding Geralt’s request reasonable.

“In the meantime, I think the only other thing we can do is enjoy the bed while we have it.” Geralt smiles, rueful, then impulsively slips his fingers into a tear in the mattress, pulling out a handful of feathers and holding them up in his palm demonstratively. “Because we won’t be able to afford another one for a while.”

Using what must be the last of his playful energy, Regis releases a puff of air, sending the feathers flying. They soar up, making careless arcs in the air before drifting down into the dark.

“That, I think we can manage,” Regis tells him, smiling.

 

* * *

 

Fay stares up, remembering, at last, to close her mouth.

She can hear Momma’s voice in her head: _you look like a fish_ , _gawping like that_.

But she can’t help it.

There are more witchers in her town. _Two_ more.

She can’t believe her luck.

She didn’t know there were so many. And she _certainly_ didn’t know any of them were women. (Well, apart from the famous Witcher Girl, of course.)

They’re kind of frightening, all decked out in their weapons and armor. Both of them are, really, but especially the shorter one with the coppery skin and the stark red hair done up intricate braids. It’s nothing about how she looks or anything she’s wearing, really. There’s just something… sharp in her eyes. Hard. Angry, even.

The girl with the dark hair and the scar on her cheek smiles more, looks kinder. Neither is trying to hide anything, not like Mister Ossory did.

But after last time, Fay knows better than to let looks deceive her. Kind people can be magical, and scary people can be kind.

The two women had looked at each other, confused, not seeming to know the names of the other witcher and the barber-surgeon after Fay had blurted them out. Maybe not all witchers knew each other like she assumed.

“This witcher you met… He didn’t have white hair and a deep voice, did he?” the green-eyed one with the scar asks, bending forward, hands on her knees. “And a beard? Did he happen to say if his name was Geralt?”

Fay nods. She supposes if the woman knows Mister Ossory’s first name, at least, she must be a friend of his.

“Hmm.” She seems puzzled. “Funny, I thought he was back in Toussaint.”

“Who’s the other one?” The redhead shifts her weight to the other leg and crosses her arms over her chest. “Who’s he traveling with?”

Green Eyes shrugs. “No idea. Never heard of a ‘Leach’ before. Could be Dandelion. Although...” She laughs. “I can’t imagine him _ever_ trying to hide who he is.” She looks to Fay again. “Do you know where they were headed?”

“They didn’t say,” Fay tells them, enunciating the foreign words carefully. “But they were headed south and east when they left.”

Green Eyes looks back at Red, frowning. “Inland. What do you think?”

“Are we _trying_ to find them? Or just hoping we’ll run into them?”

“I don’t know yet.” She turns away, wandering back to the other woman, a thoughtful look on her face. “You’re the one who said you get seasick.”

“And you’re the one who said you wanted to get out of his shadow.”

“I did,” Green Eyes admits, inching closer to Red, a hint of a pout in her voice. “I _do_. But it’d be nice to see him again, if we run into him and this... Leach character. Besides,” she grins, “you can’t kill any monsters if we go by ship.”

Red narrows her eyes, but smiles, and Fay suddenly feels like they’ve forgotten about her altogether.

“You know the way to my heart, don’t you?” she coos. “Fine, we’ll go over land. And you can introduce me to your Dad. And—” She grabs at the other witcher woman’s waist and pulls her in close, like she’s about to tickle her. “—I’ll scandalize him.”

The dark haired girl wallops her friend with an open palm against the meat of her shoulder, but doesn’t pull away. Maybe she’s not ticklish.

“ _Ha_ ,” she belts out. “Good luck with that. I’m not sure he knows the meaning of the word.”

Her eyes flutter partway shut, and she looks dreamily at Red. Red returns the look for a moment, and then glances at Fay and coughs. The girls part, Green Eyes looking away, a blush spreading on her scarred cheek.

(Why does everyone always stop just when it’s about to get interesting?)

“Thanks, kid,” Red tells her, and they both turn to leave.

Fay huffs. Not again. She can’t believe it.

What is _wrong_ with all these witchers? Don’t they know anything about their history?

“You aren’t going to see the ruins?” she asks, disbelieving. “Really?”

Green Eyes squints at her, curiosity piqued. “What ruins?”

Being very careful not to squeal or trip over the words in Common, Fay gives them the shortest possible version of the end of the story of the Witcher Girl. She tells them all of it, just how it happened, her pride for her homeland evident.

Red seems mostly confused, but Green Eyes isn’t nearly as good at keeping her expressions in check. At points she looks surprised, sad, and nearly about to bursting out laughing.

Which Fay finds a little strange; the tale of the Witcher Girl is not a particularly funny story. But she thinks of Mister Ossory’s odd laughs and smiles, and figures that witcher humor must just be… well... different.

When she finally finishes, grinning and completely out of breath, the dark haired woman kneels down again, and waves Fay over, a conspiratorial grin on her face. Fay goes to her immediately.

“That’s a good story,” she says in earnest, “And you do a wonderful job telling it. But.”

She looks Ieft and right, as if scanning for others who might be trying to to overhear what she has to say. When she’s satisfied that her secrets will be safe, she continues, speaking in a whisper.

“I happen to know a thing or two about that Witcher Girl. And since you’re such a good storyteller, I feel like you should know, too.”

She beams, her scar swooping out, caught in the curve of her grin.

“That’s not how the story ended,” she says. “In fact, it’s not even over yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some absolutely gorgeous art based on this chapter:
> 
> In addition to reviewing this chapter before I published it, AND creating the beautiful commission above, dread did some [absolutely stunning NSFW art based on a couple of scenes](http://dreadnsfw.tumblr.com/post/171299624965/asparrowsfall-wrote-some-amazing-fic-and-i-had) and HNGGGGGH it is so amazing and so filthy and I just adore it.
> 
> [Con-Affetto-Kiko](http://con-affetto-kiko.tumblr.com/) created this beautiful, [heartbreaking image of Regis after his nightmare](http://con-affetto-kiko.tumblr.com/post/171369599599/its-been-a-long-time-since-i-read-a-scene-in), and [a follow up with Geralt holding him](http://con-affetto-kiko.tumblr.com/post/171582789459/tiny-witcher-3-shenanigans-that-are-both-due-to).
> 
> [ms mothball](https://ms-mothball.tumblr.com) created this [beautiful reference to one of my fave lines in the chapter, about Regis appearing as moonlight and sorrow](https://ms-mothball.tumblr.com/post/171386711978/a-little-something-for-the-amazing-asparrowsfall). ♥
> 
> * * *
> 
> The succubi / incubi as bottoms / tops of multiple genders idea [came from this post from the aptly named dateamonster](https://dateamonster.tumblr.com/post/164187185801/original-theory-succubi-are-always-women-incubi).
> 
> If you enjoyed the chapter and feel so inclined, drop me a comment!


	3. More things in heaven and earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all Regina Larrette’s many qualities, the one that Dandelion likes best is the fact that she is _here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEADS UP: This chapter has a very brief racist comment about Asian-coded people from a minor character; it's not random, it does fit in with the plot, just wanted to give a warning and some context on that.
> 
> Thank you as always to [Kael](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeltale/pseuds/kaeltale) and [Dor](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dordean/) for beta, [Dread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadelion) for the porn assist, and to [Kiko](http://con-affetto-kiko.tumblr.com/) for the frequent pep talks!

Regina Larrette is the most beautiful woman in the world.

The mid afternoon sun adores her, winding itself into the serpentine twists of her auburn hair, drawing forth her inner radiance so sublimely that heavenly creatures themselves grow covetous.

Her nereid’s eyes are fathomless, rapturous, matched in their purity only by the luscious richness of her sun kissed skin.

The curve of her nose is like…

Like...

 _Damn_.

Well, it’s to be expected. He’s a bit out of practice at this, after all.

And, he thinks, twisting the tuning peg of one of his lute’s A strings, not everything comes out right in a first draft.

Regina is not the most beautiful woman in the world. She may not be the most beautiful woman in this tavern. He hasn’t quite been able to risk a glance at the face of her flaxen haired companion, because if there’s even a _chance_ she looks like—

No matter.

The show must go on—regardless of any unexpected changes in casting.

His hands still know the way of it, even if his brain is a little slow to return to form. Muscle memory is truly a gift. His fingers work the courses, traipsing between the frets like a bee gliding from the hive to the blossom and back again, and where there was nothing before but the sound of coughing and steins clanking and scraping against the tables, the story of Ettariel pours forth in A minor, sad and sweet and lingering.

There’s a wistful satisfaction that curls within him as he brings to life the old ballad about the charming elven princess for the first time in what feels like an age. His location has that in its favor: standards about the elder races are not always a popular choice in Redania for obvious reasons.

He launches into the solo, gently guiding his thoughts away from Ettarial’s ethereal beauty to more earthly aims, pondering his exaltation of the object of his latest desires. He studies her where she sits, roughly six feet away, offering her a wink in subtle fashion as he does so.

Regina is fair enough. Her heart-shaped face is a little too pointed and pinched, and her mouth is a little on the large side, depending on your tastes.

But for the moment, her face is turned up in his direction, and her mouth is set in a soft upward curve, presented solely for him.

Of all Regina Larrette’s many qualities, the one that Dandelion likes best is the fact that she is _here_.

Here being the Three Griffins, in this village he cannot recall the name of, at the edge of a forest that’s far, far too large to exist in Nilfgaard (truly, the fact that Emhyr hasn’t logged the entire thing yet is astounding) on the border between Maecht and Etolia.

He had no idea when he set off on this journey how wild central Nilfgaard still was. Even the much lauded Imperial roads look a bit worse for the wear here, weeds sprouting between copious upturned paving stones.

He attempts to remind himself it’s still a far cry from some of the smaller towns he once visited with Geralt, travelling to the edge of the world and back again. Those days were dangerous and exciting… and, all right, tiring and malodorous, too. He still misses them, though.

In any case, the middling quality of the town and its lodgings is inconsequential in the long run; he’ll be in the capital in less than a week, debuting his magnum opus—with full symphonic backing and the support of a wealthy patron, nonetheless!—and this too quaint little tavern will be only a memory.

(It’s odd that he isn’t familiar with his benefactor’s family name, Dandelion reflects, not for the first time. But given all the wealth flowing toward armament suppliers as a result of the war, Nilfgaard is awash with new money at the moment, and he’s more than happy to accept an initial splurge of their newfound riches.)

He holds the last note as the reverberation of the strings echoes into silence and pauses a moment before rising to take a bow.

The applause is about as thunderous as it can be for four people—oh, no, five: the noise seems to have woken the inebriate sleeping at the farthest table up fully, and he’s joined in the clapping at last.

Shrugging his satchel onto his shoulder and his lute onto his back, Dandelion descends from the stage, turning at first toward the bar. But Delwen, the bartender, smiles and shakes his head, holding up a stein and signalling his intent to deliver it. He’s been awfully accommodating since acquiring Dandelion’s Henselt leader card during a particularly atrocious third round last night.

Dandelion smiles back at him. The bastard.

He pivots back toward the girls’ table, hanging his belongings off the back of the chair nearest Regina.

Her friend, the blonde one he’s been avoiding—Gia? Tia? Something like that—smiles at him. The third girl, a brunette, clearly younger than the other two, says nothing. She seems exceedingly shy.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he bows his head at each of them in turn, a picture of gallantry.

“Master Dandelion,” the blonde says cheerfully. “Will you be playing again for us this evening?”

“Of course!” He grins as he takes a seat, positively radiating warmth right back at her while fixing his gaze just over top of her head. “As inspired as I’ve been by all of your charms? How could I possibly stay silent?”

In point of fact, he doesn’t have a choice: he’s promised Delwen four sets of at least half an hour each as payment for his room and board tonight, even though three is more in keeping with Dandelion’s standard rate when it comes to barter. _Double_ bastard. The man haggles like… well, like a witcher, actually.

“But first,” Dandelion leans an elbow casually on the table, settling in. “A short break. I’m parched. And in need of intelligent conversation.” He smiles at his auburn haired nymphette again, winning a crystalline giggle from her in return. “How have things been—ah, thank you—”

He takes a pull of the lager Delwen sets in front of him, and the town’s name comes back to him just in the nick of time; he knew his memorization skills wouldn’t fail him. “How have things been here in Altrier as of late? Or Maecht as a whole?” He clears his throat softly. “I shamefully admit my travels through Nilfgaard aren’t as frequent as they ought to be.” 

Regina opens her pretty-if-biggish mouth to respond, but it’s a male voice that cuts across the room.

The recently dormant drunk pipes up: “‘S’alright.” He interrupts himself with the squeak of a hiccup. “Neither are the Emperor’s.”

Annoyed as Dandelion is to have engaged the old man, that bit of gossip draws on a thread of curiosity within him, pulling his attention. He’d heard tell of discordance between Emhyr and the various trade corporations, true enough, but he hadn’t realized common citizens were giving voice to feelings of hostility regarding their leader’s absence as well.

He throws Regina a placating look, as if to say _I’ll humor him_ , before raising both his voice and eyebrows and glancing in the old codger’s direction. “Oh?”

“Berrek has the right of it,” Delwen confirms with a nod as he finishes wiping down their table, tucking the bar rag into his belt. “Emperor’s been in Vizima full time. Heard a rumor the capital might be permanently moved within the year. But it seems he’s coming back now, at least for a bit.”

“I’m sure,” Dandelion says smoothly, “he’s all too aware of his subjects’ needs.” He’s found, over years of experimentation, that it’s best to begin by complimenting the ruling monarch—you can always beg off that you’re a foreigner if the locals feel the need to correct you.

Unsurprisingly, it takes only a moment for Berrek to do that very thing.

“Oh, it ain’t that,” he grouses. “It’s that the capital—the real one, I mean—is going to shit.” 

Delwen coughs, narrowing his eyes at the old man’s course language in the presence of ladies, much to Berrek’s obliviousness.

Dandelion pushes onward. “What makes you say that?”

“Bad things have been happening of late,” the old man laments. He leans forward conspiratorially, as though he’s thinking of moving to join them at their table—then sways unsteadily in his seat, appearing to reconsider. “Something’s got into the water, made folks sick like. Had to shut the sewers for a week to contain the damage. And there’ve been... signs...”

Screwing up his face in confusion, Dandelion looks back to the girls and the bartender. The old man can’t mean mystical portents, can he?

“Acts of vandalism,” Delwen clarifies, walking back to the bar. “Threatening messages written on walls and so forth.”

“Hmmm.” It does sound unfortunate, but it’s nothing a team of trained imperial soldiers couldn’t handle on their own. And certainly nothing an emperor would need to cross the continent for.

“You ask me,” the drunk barrels on, making a face of disgust, “it’s them slant eyes doin’ it.”

“ _Berrek!_ ” Regina shrieks, finally looking in the man’s direction. Gia-Tia covers her mouth, aghast, and even the quiet brunette looks chagrined.

“He means the Hanni,” Regina explains softly, turning back to Dandelion, embarrassed by the blatant bigotry.

It’s not as though he hasn’t heard the slur before, but he’s a little taken aback himself.

Nilfgaard is—and to some extent, always has been—a proverbial melting pot. The southerners’ tolerance for folk not like themselves extends not only to their elven forebears and other nonhumans, but to a variety of ethnic groups, most of whom reside in the capital in numbers so large they’ve formed their own communities. As far as he’s heard tell, it’s been a boon for the city to have such districts—the variety of goods and food sold there delights the local populace, and as it’s taxed the same amount as all such commerce, the crown has no objection to them either.

But the implication that its denizens are considered a threat, or are somehow unwelcome is news to him.

“That’s... odd,” he says, tight lipped for once, not wishing to further stoke the fire.

“True enough,” Delwen agrees. “But. Well. That _is_ what they’re saying. And the Emperor _is_ returning. His coach was spotting fording the Velda near Rocayne.”

The image of Emhyr riding in a cramped little carriage for days on end, being jostled every few feet as he becomes increasingly aware of the state of disrepair his famous roads are in is… more than a little amusing.

Dandelion can’t help it: he laughs aloud. “That’s almost certainly a decoy.”

Gia-Tia frowns. “What makes you say that?”

Oh. Perhaps they aren’t as aware of the subterfuge involved in the comings and goings of royalty as he might have imagined. He’s been moving through spheres of political intrigue for years now in the North. Given everything Geralt’s told him about the Emperor, he can only imagine the additional layers of complexity in any stratagems employed in _his_ excursions.

“Well,” Dandelion offers, “if it’s an emergency—as you stated it was—going by ship would be faster, and a portal would be faster still.”

“A… portal?” the brunette asks.

Berrek hiccups again, confusion washing over his face. “Then why bother with the carriage?” 

Regina is the only one of the bunch that doesn’t seem surprised by Dandelion’s assertion. Perhaps that was the origin of his attraction to her: an intuitive sense that she was quickest on the uptake out of the three.

He gives a high pitched tremulous little laugh and gestures fluidly. “Ah, but talking politics is so dreadfully dull. Ooh!” He snaps his fingers; the move is perhaps a bit over the top, but it seems to draw their attention. “We should have a game instead.”

The blonde asks him what sort of game, and he effortlessly enumerates a few, skipping over a certain card game he happened to lose rather badly at the previous night.

There’s _Spectre_ , and _Ulfhedinn_ of course. The latter can be quite entertaining—provided everyone’s sober enough to comprehend the rules. Still, perhaps the very suggestion of a game where players assume the roles of villagers eaten nightly by lycanthropes is in poor taste.

(It’s peculiar, he notes, how many popular games are named after monsters. Could it be that some of them were invented by witchers? He must ask Geralt about it when they next meet.)

But with its key mechanic being a person’s prowess for duplicity, _Ulfhedinn_ puts him in mind of another game requiring the mastery of deception.

“I know,” he says at last. “The Way of Truth.”

“What’s that?” the brunette asks, wide-eyed.

Dandelion grins. Ah, it’s even better when they aren’t familiar with it. “It’s a manner of gambling for one another’s secrets.” Pulling a scrap of parchment and a tiny chalk nib from his bag, he sets about drawing a rough grid of squares as he explain the rules. “Each player asks the next in the rotation a question—for example, I might say, ‘Regina, when were you last kissed?’”

“Master Dandelion!” While the tone of Regina’s voice lilts with faux shock, making a show of how unsurprised she really is, Dandelion doesn’t miss the rosy flush that appears on the apple of her cheeks. Well. She should make a fun opponent.

He goes on, pointing to the sketched squares. “You, Miss Regina, could answer with the truth, or a fabrication. If I believe you’ve chosen to lie, I can challenge you. If I am right, and you confess,” he drags a finger down the board, “you must start back at the beginning. But if I have falsely accused you, then _I_ must begin again. Now,” he reaches again into his satchel and pulls out a handful of coppers to use as tokens. “Who’d like to play?”

“Oooh,” the blonde shakes her head, drawing up her delicate hands in a defensive position. “I shan't even try. I’m a terrible liar.”

“You could simply tell the truth from the start,” Dandelion reassures her, still avoiding her eyes. “It’s the one strategy that’s impossible to beat.”

“Yes,” the brunette whispers, “but what if you ask something terribly personal?”

The bard smiles with teeth. “That’s precisely the point.”

“I’m game.” Regina shrugs. “But… What’s to prevent someone from lying about lying?”

“Ah, an excellent question,” Dandelion praises her insight. “Though perhaps one best suited for someone less… seasoned in the spectrum of human emotion than I.” He gives another dashing little bow. “I give you my word that I will always come clean with regard to my attempts at deceit. And as for my opponent—that is to say, _you_ , my sweet—well.” He chuckles. “I would be able to tell.”

Regina’s sparkling sapphire eyes go a touch darker in hue as they narrow, her brows shifting into a steeper decline.

“ _Would_ you, though?” she asks, and—suddenly, strangely—Dandelion feels like a mouse in swiping distance of the arc of a cat’s paw.

The haughty laugh he attempts comes out more as surprised exhalation; he covers it with a cough.

“Of course!” He smiles, because the girl can’t know what she’s saying. As much as he’s found himself pleasantly surprised with her show of cunning thus far, she can’t seriously believe that she’d best him in a trial of wits.

“My ability to divine counterfeit sentiment is unparalleled,” he explains.

Despite his assurances, the same smug looks remains fixed on her face as she nods, seeming to assent without agreeing.

 _Well, time shall show the true victor_.

“Now…” He sets out two tokens on the makeshift board before holding out his open palm. “Shall we? Ladies first.”

Shifting slightly in her seat, Regina tosses her head, delicate sienna locks flung in a graceful arc over her shoulder. The look she bends toward him is soft enough, veiled by finespun lashes.

But all delicacy is thrown aside when she offers her first question.

“Is your song ‘The Wolven Storm’ truly about Geralt of Rivia and Yennefer of Vengerberg?”

And then he’s back in Novigrad. Back in a small upstairs room at the Chameleon made infinitely smaller by oppressive silence, by dead choking air left in the wake of small sentences uttered in a small voice.

_I’ve met someone else. You must have known._

And all of it—the scraps of unplayed songs and melodies unresolved, the pet names and private jokes never to be uttered again, the unspoken questions tangling into yet more questions, winding to a deadly tautness in his throat—all of it comes rushing back in an instant.

 _That_ moment. The moment he learned what it was for a heart’s strings to snap like worn catgut.

Hurt—real hurt—was never the swelling of melancholic chords, or some woeful monologue where time stops as the leading actor pours out the remains of his decimated heart.

It is the world being ever so quietly spinning on without you, rearranging itself to hold new meaning, disorienting and horrible at once.

And, even six months on, it’s the title of a song spoken in frivolity feeling like a halberd run clean through the core of you.

It all happens in the space it takes to play a eighth note; it’s only his extensive theatrical training that allows him to avoid flinching like a man wounded when she says it.

“I... can truthfully say they are its subjects,” he says, feeling his smile going stale. “But that is not my ballad, my dear. It was penned by the inimitable performer known as Callonetta, you see.”

He swallows; the sound is absurdly loud and strained to his ears. He does not look about to see if anyone else has perceived it as such.

Regina’s hand rushes up to cover her mouth.

“ _Oh!_ I’m so sorry!” She winces. “And here I thought the embarrassment wouldn’t begin until a little later.”

“It’s fine,” he says breezily, reflecting on how very much less than fine it is.

Asking her an inane question to keep the game moving forward—something about horseback riding, imbued with innuendo simply out habit—he admits to himself that this conquest means nothing to him. Nothing at all.

He had been trying to slip back into an older version himself: Dandelion the scoundrel, the carefree cad, a personification of drink and song and joy. He is none of these things.

He had known that his heart was far from committed to the chase, but he’s clear now even his nethers are similarly unmoved; not once has he found his gaze drifting below the threshold of Regina’s clavicle, nor has he imagined secreting a rogue hand beneath her shift. He can barely imagine it now.

Advancing their pieces each a square, he doubles his resolve. He _has_ to shake off this unrelenting heartbreak, regain his focus. It’s the only healthy, natural thing to do. He has a premiere in the capital in less than a month, and a patron to impress.

Regina Larrette is the most beautiful woman in the world, he thinks, letting his gaze wander in the direction of her... ample charms.

And by gods, he’ll find himself in her bed tonight, or do something _extremely_ foolish trying.

He’s almost feeling a modicum of inspiration in regard to certain of her ladylike treasures, when her questioning again catches him by surprise.

“When did you last see the witcher?”

He blinks, looking her in the face.

“He… attended a performance of mine in Novigrad, not too long before—”

—the ring had been delicate, simplistic, even, except for one intricate twist of the band across the top, and a single tiny gem, a rare pink-hued sapphire, nestled into its golden curves. Perhaps other women would desire something more ostentatious, he’d explained to Geralt, but weightlessness is key when it comes to a gift meant to adorn a lutenist.

_It’s perfect, Dandelion, I’m sure she’ll love it. Hey, congratulations—_

“—ah, Imbaelk, I believe. I heard he travelled to Toussaint shortly afterward,” he finishes absentmindedly.

He stifles a sigh. Dammit.

Moving on—he has to move on—

_Regina’s eyes, Regina’s lips, Regina’s breasts—_

“If distance was no obstacle, where would you most truly desire to travel, Regina?”

“Oooh,” she coos, “I like this bit. You know, I _do_ dearly love Toussaint.”

“Ah,” he reminisces, wistful, letting his thoughts drift back to past escapades with a certain other chestnut-haired beauty. “Truly a place where one can follow one’s own desires. An excellent choice, with no need for falsehood. In honor of your answer, this evening, I’ll play ‘By the Heron I Swear’—”

But before he can extract another sheet of parchment from his bag to make a note of it, Regina pipes up.

“My turn.” She adjusts their pieces on the board. “Have you received word from Geralt recently?”

Stiffly, Dandelion sets the paper aside, and regards her with narrowed eyes.

“No,” he says slowly, “I haven’t.”

Even as distracted as he can be at moments, he finds this line of questioning nothing if not suspicious. It’s not uncommon for Geralt’s deeds of derring-do to feature prominently in the conversation, even in the witcher’s absence. But this seems excessive.

He glances about the room surreptitiously: Delwen is cleaning mugs and badly humming _Elaine Ettariel_. Gia-Tia and the nameless brunette look bored and uncomfortable, respectively, and a loud snore escapes from Berrek’s oversized snout, confirming exactly how interested in the conversation _he_ is.

Meanwhile Regina looks on at him, wide eyed and free of guile.

Perhaps… Perhaps he’s overthinking it. Perhaps he’s looking for spycraft where there is none merely as an excuse to avoid romantic entanglements.

There’s really only one remedy for it that he can see.

Fortunately, it’s sitting right in front of him.

He drains half of his stein in one go, then sets it back on the table with a sharp clanking sound.

He fixes his sights on Regina’s mouth with a renewed vigor. “Are you just going to ask about _Geralt_ all afternoon?”

“Is that your question for the round?” she fires back coquettishly.

His bark of laughter echoes off the tavern walls. “Why not.”

* * *

He has to hand it to Regina: if she’s lying—or lying about lying—he certainly can’t tell.

Of course, he’s well into his third lager—and a _much_ more comfortable frame of mind—so perhaps his judgement is slightly impaired.

Neither of them has accused the other of stating a falsehood, and they’ve made a fair bit of progress down the board. Gia-Tia left for home two questions ago—something of a relief, frankly—and the brunette, at some unknown point in the proceedings, buried her nose in a book, apparently less than entertained by their banter.

Dandelion, however, has found it enlightening.

While not as direct as before, there is a certain throughline to Regina’s queries: one subject above others that draws her attention, and he thinks he’s figured out how he can use it to his advantage.

“Before your next turn,” he takes another pull from his mug, emptying it completely yet again, “I should let you know that I myself have had many an adventure with Geralt of Rivia... If you wanted to pursue that particular line of questioning.”

Her eyes light up and her breath catches—which does something truly delightful to her chest, he notices himself notice with some glee—and he leans back in his chair, and smacking his lips with satisfaction.

“In fact,” he adds casually, “I daresay I’ve picked up something of the witchering trade myself.”

Without warning, the room goes silent: every footstep, every _clink_ of freshly clean dishes set against one another, every single inhale… stops.

It’s the sound of the brunette’s book being set on the table that finally breaks the quiet, followed by a question asked in her tremulous voice. “Is that so, Master Dandelion?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Regina says, a flame kindled in her blue eyes. “Do you speak true?” She smirks. “Or would you have to start back at the top of the board?”

Dandelion glances around. Everyone—Delwen, the girls, even bloody Berrek—is staring at him like he’s announced he’s the heir to the throne of Nilfgaard.

“It’s true,” he hears himself say, words rushing sloppily past his lips before he can stop them. “Of course it’s true. Why do you ask?”

Delwen frowns, and the brunette’s gaze tumbles back down to the table in fear.

A fear he’s seen before in the eyes of Geralt’s customers.

_Oh, no._

“We’ve been plagued by a spirit recently,” the bartender tells him.

The seemingly oceanic amount of lager Dandelion has just consumed is suddenly churning in his belly. “A… spirit?”

“It’s been seen on the edge of the forest, stealing food, clothes… Killed a couple of chickens and goats. It’s scaring the women and children something awful.” From the sound of Delwen’s voice, it doesn’t seem as though he was immune to that reaction, either.

Dandelion _might_ have been overstating his credentials as a monster slayer a touch, but even with his second hand knowledge to draw on, the description doesn’t sound like the behavior of a wraith or other spectre...Perhaps it’s benign?

“Sometimes a… a leshen will…”

“It’s no leshen,” Berrek butts in, loud and cross. “I _know_ what a leshen looks like.”

“A... wisp, we’ve been calling it,” Delwen continues. “A violet wisp. About… six feet high, and rail thin, and sort of… well, purple in color.”

The brunette’s hands are clenched atop the spread pages of her book. “And I heard it has claws.” She shakes her head. “ _Dreadfully_ long ones.”

Dandelion swallows. “Claws, eh?”

Regina looks at him beseechingly. “If you could do something about it—”

“Well, I’d love to—” the bard says lightly, reasonably. “But I’d promised Delwen I’d—”

Without warning, there’s a tall presence looming behind him; somehow Delwen crossed the entire room making hardly a noise. To Dandelion’s credit, he only jumps a little when the heavy hand lands on his shoulder.

“It would stand,” the barkeeper says, an obvious note of hope lifting up his words. “It would stand against your room and board. Hells, if you took care of the wisp for us, you could stay as long as you liked.”

“Ah.”

Everyone in the tavern has their eyes fixed on him, regarding him with varying degrees of optimism and disbelief.

As it turns out, he had no idea what game he was playing.

He had no idea he could lose like _this_.

“Please, Master Dandelion?” Regina crosses her arms in front of her, squeezing them together over her chest—causing what is almost certainly a very calculated shift in her bodice—while batting her lashes at him again. (She’s an even better negotiator than Delwen.) “I’d be ever so grateful.”

Very softly and slightly hysterically, Dandelion giggles, for what else can he do?

“How could I say no?”

* * *

The wind whips harder than it has any right to this far south at this time of year, skimming chilly fingers against his skin at the neckline and the hem of his jerkin, making him shudder. Any lingering warmth—or false courage—he might have once felt from the lager in his veins left his system hours ago.

Branches sway menacingly before him, giving the impression of giants with clawed hands, and bits of fallen flora skitter along the forest floor, sounding like the movement of small creatures.

He’s losing the light, and along with it, any hope that this will go at all according to his very simple plan.

A couple of laps through the area immediately beyond the town, he told himself, and maybe an hour sitting beside a tree working out some new lyrics for a ballad. That was all he’d need to spend, and then he could return to the Three Griffins, breathless but triumphant, perhaps with his shirt slightly duffed up and his shoes muddied, the story of an epic battle ready to roll off his tongue.

After telling the tale, he could fall straight into his waiting bed, acquired free of charge—and with a companion in it, nonetheless.

But beyond fencing and an encyclopedic knowledge of monsters, he’s slowly recalled that there are other essential skills involved in being a witcher.

Like tracking.

He knows every shred of symbolism associated with every species of tree on the continent. The Yew represents death and resurrection, while the Elder, of course, means good health and prosperity.

Unfortunately, his practical knowledge in distinguishing them is more limited, and all of their downed trunks have begun to look very much the same to him.

The one he _thought_ he’d been using as a way marker started showing up again and again, to an implausible degree of frequency, until he finally noticed the flowers and plants surrounding it were different every time.

Which can really only mean one thing: he’s gotten himself hopelessly lost.

He does another complete circle where he stands, taking in his surroundings yet again; no direction reveals itself as likelier than any other to be the one that will lead him back to the village.

He’s about to pick a trajectory at random and head in it, when the low hum of natural activity is interrupted by a sound he hasn’t heard before: a sort of deep, rough panting, punctuated with an occasional grunt.

It’s distant, and echoes strangely off the trees; it’s hard to say whether the source is human or not. It is repetitive, like the exhalation of a woodcutter, only without the definitive strike of an axe between each vocalization.

If he didn’t know better, he might think it it was—

But it’s too low in pitch for that sort of thing.

He glances down at the short sword in his right hand and grimaces. He’s begun to regard it less as weapon and more as toothpick for whatever will eventually devour him.

No, he must persevere. It’s what a true witcher would do. It’s certainly what Geralt would do.

He stares in the direction of the noise: dense trees and a ridge of earth prevent him from seeing anything distinctive from the rest of environs.

Perhaps the sound is the violet wisp. Or perhaps it marks his route back to the tavern.

Either way, it’s all he’s got to go on at the moment.

He begins to walk boldly toward it...

...and not ten paces in, steps on a dry branch, splitting it in two under his heel with a loud crack.

The noise, faint to begin with, stops altogether. Dandelion freezes, waiting for some sort of reaction. But as nearly half a minute ticks by, none comes.

The hilt of his sword is sweaty in his palm; he squeezes it tighter and prepares to take another step, when the wind kicks up again.

There’s a change in the air, a sharp tang he can nearly taste, almost like the arcane aura that surrounds a mage immediately before they let a spell fly.

Just up ahead, between the shadows of the trees on the ridge, he spots the movement of a dark shape. It’s difficult to tell, but somewhere in the swirling mass, he swears he can make out a hint of purplish blue.

Then suddenly—almost too quickly, as if he were missing time, or his eyes had failed him momentarily—the dark amorphous smear is replaced by a clearer outline, one belonging to a… creature. Something taller than a fox or a deer, or any other beast he’d expect to find here.

It looks like… a man.

The wisp. It’s real. It’s _here_.

Every tensed tendon in his body is telling him to run. It’s only his absolutely lack of orientation that gives him pause: what if he runs further into the woods? Or directly into its lair?

Both he and the former wisp are entirely still. He finally decides to try and reason with it; he’s much more dangerous with language than with a sword anyway.

“Hear me, creature,” he calls out, words carrying in a stage voice, half a step lower than his own. “I know your kind can change shape at will. Are you the one that they call the violet wisp?”

The reply comes to him in an oddly familiar voice.

“Not to my knowledge. ‘But these are strange times, and we augur not what we may become.’” 

Dandelion blinks.

He may not be able to identify trees or monsters at a glance, but he knows Act Five, Scene Two of _Malham, Prince of Kovir_ when he hears it.

The self-proclaimed not-a-wisp continues, quoting the passage flawlessly.

“‘Tis beyond such meagre means as we are granted to wield fate in our own hands. Be it now, tomorrow, or years to come—we may merely rise to meet it, for the readiness is all.’”

_What in all the worlds?_

The number of beings, human or otherwise, with the ability—let alone the knowledge and impetus—to reference one of the most dramatic (and raunchy—truly, “rise to meet” leaves little to the imagination of the discerning patron) parts of a classic tragedy are vanishingly small.

He can only stand there, baffled, as the figure steps away from the shade of the trees and turns in his direction, making the list rapidly shorter.

There’s only one person with that lean, worn regality, that rigid profile beginning in a sharply defined brow, then swooping into an aquiline nose and curling into a clever smile. Only one person who possesses that gentle but lofty tone of voice.

But that’s impossible.

“No,” Dandelion breathes out, not entirely sure he intends for the other man to hear his rebuttal.

Still, the vampire—for truly, it can be no other—must have caught his denial, for he turns completely around, revealing his visage in full; his black eyes glisten as he grins.

“I’m afraid so, old friend.”

The bard draws an impossibly deep breath, feeling his eyebrows leaping up his forehead, his expression for once utterly out of his control.

“ _Regis?”_ he asks, voice still barely more than a whisper. “Gods, am I dreaming?”

Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy takes several unhurried steps down the sloping hillside, the thick matte of leaves and debris rustling beneath his feet as he does so, proving that he is no mere apparition.

“Oh, I dearly hope not,” he chuckles, perhaps a little ruefully. “I’ve had enough excitement in that direction as of late.”

Stopping little more than inches away, he spreads his arms wide.

“Dandelion. It is _wonderful_ to see you.”

Shaking himself out of his shock, Dandelion rushes forward, embracing his friend with no further hesitation. “By the Mother! _Regis!_ ”

A long fingered hand pats him softly on the back as deceptively strong arms pull him close. He breathes in the herby scent permeating the vampire’s gambeson, and finally, finally begins to believe that what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling, is true: Regis is _alive_.

“I can barely—how is this possible?!” He pushes the vampire back, holding him at arm’s length, studying his appearance—although for what, he’s not entirely certain. Some sign of the distress Regis has been through, perhaps. “Geralt said—at Stygga castle—”

Regis frowns, eyes darting downward momentarily. “Yes. He was quite correct. But fortunately,” his gaunt face brightens once more, “we vampires are made of heartier stock that you might imagine to look at us.”

The bard laughs again, unsure if he’s more delighted by Regis’s blatant understatement—‘heartier stock’, indeed—or the sheer serendipity of it all.

“This… this is _amazing_. I—Wait.” Dandelion’s eyes go wide again. “Geralt.” He states the witcher’s name with the utmost seriousness. “Have you seen him yet? He _has_ to know that you're alive. If anyone would want to know—”

Regis smiles, but strangely averts his eyes again. For a split second, it appears he’s trying to compose himself. “I’ve... seen a bit of him recently. We were reunited in Toussaint, in fact.”

Dandelion relaxes, a held breath rushing out of him.

“So those rumors I heard, about the contract from Anari—” He clears his throat. “I mean, from the duchess—that it involved… vampires. They were true? Were you—?”

“I was there. My involvement was… shall we say… complicated, at best.”

Moving a hand to his collar, Regis begins to button up his tunic, suddenly drawing Dandelion’s attention to the fact that it had been unbuttoned in the first place.

Indeed, now that he’s noticing it, Regis looks a bit dishevelled on the whole, with one leg of his breeches pulled higher than the other, the buckles of his boots undone, and his hair—shorter and sparser and grayer than it once was—cast in every direction.

Dandelion briefly wonders if, after returning from the dead, the barber-surgeon might have fallen on hard times somehow.

But there are no signs of illness or injury about him, if such things are even possible for his kind—in fact, there’s as much color in his complexion as there’s ever been—and he smiles with such warmth, Dandelion finds himself unable to do anything but smile back.

“And now you’re here,” he says, letting his arms fall to his sides, giving Regis one last sweeping glance from head to toe. “In Nilfgaard of all places.” He laughs softly. “ _Regis_. It’s incredible. I want to hear every detail! Every. Single. One. Are you staying in Altrier?”

He probably would have made his way back to the village without incident—certainly he would have, he was in no danger!—but he wouldn’t say no to a vampire escort to the inn, just in case.

Regis’s face falls again, and he tilts his head to the side, clearly considering his words.

Something… strange is going on with his friend. Stranger than mere resurrection, anyway.

While Dandelion would never categorize him as deceitful, Regis is certainly one to keep his own secrets. No one would blame him for his reserve, given his circumstances. But typically when veiling his intentions from others… well, he’s _better_ at it than this.

Presently his eyes are darting to and fro, and he clears his throat.

“Ah, hmm, no, unfortunately. I’m… somewhat short of coin at the moment.”

Dandelion frowns. “I’ve a room at the Three Griffins, if you need a place to stay—”

“Oh, no,” Regis demurs, laughing with a little too much force. He looks back from whence he came for an instant only, then faces Dandelion once more. “I’ve already set up a camp just a short distance from here, and—”

“Oh! How perfect! We can stop there for a bit!” Dandelion chuckles. “I must say, my feet are _killing_ me.”

Perhaps his evening hasn’t gone to plan, but destiny seems to be working in his favor after all. He starts up the ridge, then pauses as he realizes Regis hasn’t fallen in step beside him.

“Regis. Is… everything all right with you?”

“Of course, of course. It’s just that…”

The vampire grimaces slightly; Dandelion catches a glimpse of his fangs as he does so.

“Yes?” 

“Dandelion…” Regis gazes at his feet as he paces, as though he’s not completely comfortable with the terrain beneath them.

“You see,” he starts, obvious in his hesitancy, “Geralt has actually been... traveling with me.”

The troubadour whirls on him. “ _What?_ Why didn’t you say so before?”

Regis points in the direction they’re currently walking.

“Perhaps I should just… run on ahead and let him know we’ll be having company—”

“Don’t be silly. He’ll love the surprise—oh, it’s incredible to see you both! What have you two been up to?”

Despite Dandelion’s continued questioning, Regis doesn’t elaborate except to say they’ve ridden from Toussaint and are headed to Nilfgaard proper. Finally, he stops rather abruptly.

When Dandelion looks up, he at first sees nothing but an empty forest clearing. Regis beckons him on, moving laterally around the edge of the space… and as if by magic, the campsite appears.

It’s nothing more than cleverly calculated sightlines, of course; Dandelion sees packs and bedrolls emerge from behind boulders and logs, as well as an unlit fire pit assembled neatly at the center of the glade. He even notices a chestnut colored mare—Roach! Dear, unfortunately named Roach—and a donkey hitched behind a particularly dense patch of hedging. It’s a simple trick, but well executed: there are only a few directions one might approach from where they would immediately see the camp in its entirety, and he’s willing to bet the path from town isn’t one of them. Ingenious, though he’d expect no less from his friend the barber-surgeon.

“ _Geralt_ ,” Regis calls out, probably louder than is strictly necessary for someone with enhanced hearing, “We have a visitor—”

Dandelion glances back at him, scowling and gesturing emphatically for him to quiet down, even though, if Geralt is in the vicinity, he probably heard them both long ago.

Walking through their carefully laid out belongings, Dandelion finds no trace of the witcher himself, though he does spy his sword belt and his armor resting just outside a small tent, pitched near a massive oak. It looks slightly cozy for two to share, but it’s hard to be picky when traveling light. Or perhaps a second tent is hidden from view, like so much of the rest of their little settlement.

On a tree branch opposite the tent, a freshly felled deer carcass hangs—oh, hopefully they’ll ask him to stay on for supper, venison sounds delicious—and just a ways beyond that, draped carelessly over a tree stump—

“Oho,” Dandelion crows, moving straightaway to the garment and holding it up for inspection. “What’s this?”

The dark grey robe, made of what appears to be a fine grade of silk, is certainly pretty, if a bit plain. Its appearance is only marred by a hatching of bold lines on one of the lapels: whatever damage it suffered has been repaired with thick black thread drawn through the fabric in wide stitches like a surgeon’s sutures.

Dandelion snickers. Perhaps this was the source of Regis’s discomfort: the witcher having had another sort of visitor recently. _Extremely_ recently. “Has Geralt been up to his old tricks?”

He doesn’t turn to look back at the vampire, but Regis’s voice sounds strained in the reply.

“Not... exactly…”

“Or,” Dandelion raises his brows, studying the stiches a second time, “does this belong to a friend of _yours?”_

“Dandelion, _please_ ,” Regis begs, the words gone thin. “It’s a personal matter—”

 _Ah_. It seems he’s hit something close to the mark now.

“Some pretty Rusalka, I bet,” Dandelion posits, still grinning. “Seems like that’d be your type. Ooh, or maybe a mula?”

While he’s dismissed utterly the thought that Regis himself could be Delwen’s ‘wisp,’ it would be wonderfully coincidental if his ladylove was the ‘monster’ in question. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s intervened in one of Geralt’s contracts, turning it into an opportunity for seduction. What a pleasant end to the story that would make!

He pulls the garment closer to his face, undone by curiosity: what _do_ female vampires smell like?

“Mandrake,” Regis says abruptly.

Dandelion glances back over his shoulder. “What?”

“I have some mandrake distillate.” Regis holds out a hand imploringly. “Could I interest you in a glass? We—that is to say, _I_ —only have a few bottles remaining, but I can think of no better occasion than the visit of a friend to decant one.”

“Of course, but—” The truth dawns on Dandelion, and he turns away again, snorting. “Regis, you sly dog—you’re trying to distract me—”

His attention is drawn to the robe’s collar when the blunt fingers of a sizeable masculine hand curl over the top of it.

Dandelion would recognize that hand anywhere, of course. It’s been pulling him to safety from dangers fire-, water-, and gravity-based for over twenty years.

“You’re right,” Geralt tells him in familiar gravelly tones. “He is.”

Pulling the robe out of Dandelion’s grasp and tossing it in the crook of his elbow, he clasps the poet’s hand and draws him in for a quick embrace, clapping him on the back—just as Dandelion becomes fully aware that Geralt is shirtless, clad only in breeches slung low around his hips.

“Geralt! My dear friend! Are you…” His eyes flick eyes over the witcher’s half naked frame. “...well?”

Geralt just shakes his head, avoiding the question.

“Don’t you remember what it means when Regis calls something a ‘personal matter’?”

“I was treating Geralt for—for—an injury, you see, and—”

There’s a desperation in Regis’s voice; he explains too quickly, each word tripping on the heels of the last, until Geralt looks over at him.

“No,” the witcher says sharply, decisively. “We’re not doing this. Not for Dandelion.” He pauses, then, expression softening. He raises his eyebrows in question. “Not unless _you’d_ prefer to—”

Regis gestures, waving whatever Geralt was about to suggest away with his hands. “No, no. I merely wanted to confirm with you.”

Geralt smiles. “Good.”

“Doing what?” Dandelion asks, now completely confused. “What are you talking about? Come on, Geralt. Who’s the girl?”

“No girl.” Geralt walks past him, paying him no mind whatsoever. “Just Regis and I.”

The bard stops himself from rolling his eyes. “I can see that’s true _now_ , but—”

“Shut up.”

Geralt halts in the center of the camp, standing inches away from Regis, offering him the robe.

“Here,” he says quietly, his voice completely changed as he addresses the vampire, its rough edges smoothed over with kindness. 

“Thank you.”

Regis shakes the garment out in front of him carefully.

And when Dandelion observes him beginning to fold it up, it’s suddenly clear that his hands are moving with the quick precision of familiarity, a tenderness that can only come from possession.

That is, without question, Regis’s robe.

He tucks the neatly folded square under one arm, and Geralt steps in even closer to him, drawing a hand to his torso. His fingers curl around Regis’s waist in a way that _also_ speaks undeniably of both tenderness and possession. 

Staring down at Regis, his yellow eyes shine, unusually full of emotion. Regis casts his own smile down toward the earth. Shyly, perhaps a little awkwardly, he places a hand at the top edge of Geralt’s trousers, letting his thumb rest on Geralt’s exposed hipbone.

_Oh. They’re…?_

Dandelion watches them stand there for several seconds, their pose whispering of a good deal more intimacy than friendship; it’s both deeply genuine and a little performative at once.

None of the three men says a thing.

Squeezing Regis’s side gently once more, Geralt huffs a soft laugh, then pulls away, turning toward the tree where the deer hangs, ready and waiting to be dressed. Likewise, Regis heads wordlessly in the direction of their packed belongings.

Dandelion’s mouth works soundlessly.

It… can’t be as simple as that, can it?

Perhaps he misunderstood. He’d really hate to assume the wrong thing in a matter as delicate as this.

“So,” he begins, extending his index finger in an inquisitive gesture, “Does that mean—”

Geralt cuts him off, not looking up as he draws out his hunting knife and slices into the buck’s belly.

“We’re _fucking_ , Dandelion,” he says plainly. “Got it?”

The bard shuts his mouth. Very slowly, he turns to look back at Regis.

Having stowed the robe away, Regis pulls another item from his rucksack: a white bottle with a tapered copper neck. He holds it aloft in Dandelion’s direction.

“I don’t know about you,” he says with a slightly unsteady half smile. “But I think I could use that drink now.”

* * *

The aroma of mandrake wafts to Dandelion’s nose as he idly swirls his mug, the gentle burn of the initial sips spreading pleasantly in his chest and belly.

“It has to be said, Regis. Your skills as a distiller haven’t lessened any since we last met. I think this is even better than the last batch I was fortunate enough to taste.”

The smile that quirks Regis’s lips in response is small, but the pride he takes in his work being complimented is evident nonetheless.

“I can only claim partial credit,” he says, glancing up momentarily from chopping carrots and onions to accompany the evening’s meal. “The _Alrauna Diavolis_ is more responsible for the pleasantly feisty sapidity than my technique as an artisan. But I thank you nonetheless.”

Having made short work of the vegetables, Regis begins to set logs into the firepit just as Geralt returns, his shirt restored, bringing with him a freshly prepared cut of tenderloin and several backstrap medallions.

Gods, Dandelion thinks, smiling, it’s good to see them again. And both of them together, too.

And while it may be a bit surprising how very… _together_ they are… If he’s entirely honest with himself, it’s only a bit.

Geralt may, on occasion, scoff in regard to certain aspects of their friendship, but the troubadour is more privy to his mind than most.

Notably, Dandelion has been drunk with Geralt more than just about anyone else can claim to have been.

Which has afforded him the opportunity to ask questions on topics he never would otherwise dare to broach. Such as: _Geralt. Those sorceresses. Aren’t you afraid they might… throw you out a tower window? Or turn you into a marmot? Or decide to use your skull as a paperweight?_

To which the inebriated witcher—stumbling, leering, laughing—replied: _Yes. That’s the whole idea._

And while he’s fairly sure Yennefer wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, it’s little more than a stone’s throw from indescribably powerful magic user to ineffably powerful otherworldly being, and less than half that distance when the being in question happens to be Regis.

This sort of relationship between Regis and Geralt isn't something he’d anticipated—that much is unequivocally true.

But as he watches the practiced way they move together, it’s becoming increasingly easy to accept as fact. There’s an effortless back and forth about their manner: Geralt lighting the fire with a flick of his wrist, and Regis reaching into the flame with his bare hands, moving the logs into place with greater precision, both their talents and timing perfectly matched.

There are many aspects of the scene that, only hours before, Dandelion would have protested as implausible, if not outright impossible.

But being friends with Geralt through the years, he’s actually become rather used to seeing impossible things come to life before his eyes.

“Now, Dandelion.” Regis wipes his hands and steps back from the sizzling steaks. “Lest we reach a state of overwhelming information asymmetry, do me the favor of indulging my curiosity. What brings you to Nilfgaard?”

“Ah!” Dandelion’s heart flutters. Yes: a topic he can embrace with gusto, and people he hasn’t told about it yet. A perfect distraction.

“I’m premiering a new work next month in the capital,” he states proudly.

Geralt has a typically subdued reaction, merely raising an eyebrow as he sits—somewhat pointedly, it seems—a few feet away from Regis on a nearby stump.

Gratifyingly, however, Regis responds with more enthusiasm, his dark eyes alight at the announcement. “Congratulations are in order, then! What sort of piece is it?”

The poet can’t quite restrain his ebullience, so it’s fortunate he doesn't have to. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever heard. My most ambitious composition to date, in fact.”

“A choral work?” Regis asks, seemingly intrigued and undoubtedly aware of Nilfgaard’s history of sophisticated and innovative choir arrangements—a fact that only delights Dandelion further.

It is not a vocal piece, he explains, or at least not exclusively. No, his latest magnum opus is an arrangement for a grand ensemble of instrumentalists—harpsichord, cornett, lute, and viol to name a few.

“It's an expansive, challenging work, the like of which has not only never been heard before, but prior to now has never been possible. You see, it's a matter of temperament.”

Geralt frowns. “As in... personality?”

Dandelion pauses; he supposes it is a confusing concept in non-musical circles. He’s about to commence an explanation when he finds himself stopped short.

“I believe our friend is referring to musical temperament,” Regis says. “That is to say, tuning: sympathetic resonance. The way played notes catch the air and sound out.” He nods, seemingly at Geralt’s neck, and then draws a hand to his own collarbone, indicating Geralt’s medallion. “How they... vibrate together.”

Before Dandelion can comment on that clever bit of elucidation, the witcher’s eyes dart away, and he nods once, chin to chest, coughing into his hand.

“Right,” he says quietly.

(Thank the gods for Regis’s presence; at last, a kindred spirit, a man of taste! And someone to balance Geralt’s rather low instincts when it comes to the arts. Dandelion is growing to like this arrangement more and more.)

“Well—I won't bore you with the details,” he says, as much for himself as for his companions, feeling himself getting carried away already, “but suffice to say, I have applied a new manner of tempering, devised with some of my colleagues back at Oxenfurt, that allows me to bring together a coalition of players in an entirely new way.

“And the best part about it is the subject matter,” he adds, moved to stand as he says it.

He gestures with widespread fingers, indicating the epic scale of the thing. “It's a meditation on the Conjunction of Spheres. Do you see?” He can feel himself beaming. Come to think of it, this is the best he’s felt in months. “The appropriateness of the execution of the piece? How it aligns with the theme?” He laughs. “‘ _Aligns’!_ There, again! Consonance. Synchronicity. It's… it’s _thrilling_.”

“I must admit,” the vampire smiles back at him, adjusting the steaks over the flame, “it does seem a rather thoughtful, nuanced approach to the material. I look forward to hearing it myself.”

“That’s right! You’re headed to Nilfgaard City as well. You’ll come to opening night, then?”

“I don’t see why not.” Regis regards Geralt again. “Do you?”

While Dandelion hadn’t expected an overabundance of joy from Geralt on the topic, the scowl currently cast at him feels a little unwarranted. He can’t still be upset over the circumstances of their reunion, can he?

“That’s all… fascinating,” the witcher says, dismissing Regis’s question. “Not sure it explains why you were traipsing around all alone in the woods, though.”

Chastised, Dandelion sits back down. “I _might_ have overstated my proficiency in the art of, ah, monster hunting,” he admits.

“You don’t say.” Geralt grimaces. “Why the hell does everyone want to be a witcher lately? No, don’t answer that,” he interjects, a quick aside to a sardonically smiling Regis. A look of realization—and disappointment—dawns on Geralt’s features. “There’s some woman involved, isn’t there?”

“Not at all,” Dandelion lies, or attempts to. (The unfortunate thing about knowing Geralt well, he reflects, is that Geralt knows him just as completely.)

Geralt’s expression deepens into a scowl. “What happened with Priscilla?” he snarls, and Dandelion can see it on his face: he’s picturing her as he last saw her, growing more irate with every passing second.

And now Dandelion is picturing her too: sitting backstage, body curled slightly around her lute, quietly picking out a melody, emanating a grace that can only come from one unaware of being observed. No euphemisms needed, and no poetry required beyond the simple fact of her existence. She’s… perfection.

He winces.

“What did you _do?_ ” Geralt demands, “Did you run off with some—”

“ _No,_ ” Dandelion says finally, slamming his empty mug down on the log next to him and silencing Geralt.

He places his face in his hands, feeling the hurt wash over him again before letting his arms fall to his sides.

“No,” he repeats, more quietly this time. “There was no running off… At least, not on _my_ part.” He sighs, staring at the dead leaves curling around the toes of his shoes for long moments before looking up at his friends. He smiles sadly at both of their shocked faces.

“He has a lovely basso, I’m told, which serves to contrast her new range as a contralto better than my countertenor. An artistic match, you see, as well as a romantic one.” His laugh is bitter as wolfsbane. “An excuse I might have made once. Zoltan always said she was me with…” He gestures in front of his chest awkwardly. “...certain additional feminine assets. Looks like he was more right than he knew.”

Both Geralt and Regis are silent, staring at first at Dandelion, and then into the bright twisting shapes made by the fire. The witcher breaks the stillness first.

“Damn. I’m sorry, Dandelion. Really.”

“As am I,” chimes in Regis, handing him the bottle of mandrake preemptively. “I had heard so many lovely things about you as a pair.”

Dandelion sighs again, pouring a little more of the brown liquid into his glass. “It’s…” He cannot quite bring himself to use the word ‘fine’ now, finding himself backed into using a rather loathsome tautology. “It is what it is.”

He smiles again, this time with a hint of actual joy in it. “But our time can be better spent on other topics. Something cheerier, perhaps. How is Toussaint these days?”

Geralt freezes, and Regis, wide-eyed, produces a stuttering sort of laugh. They exchange a glance before looking at Dandelion with a shared weary amusement.

Oh, no. What has he stumbled into _this_ time?

“What? What did I say?”

* * *

Dandelion finds out what he said, or rather the meaning behind it, over the course of dinner.

As it happens, Regis is still quite the cook. His skills may have even improved in the intervening time. (Or perhaps the equipment used for the meal is somewhat finer than on their previous journey; using Cahir’s hauberk as a strainer did not denote a high water mark of culinary artistry.)

As they all eat, Regis and Geralt trade off as narrator for the story of the so called ‘Beast of Beauclair’, and Dandelion gets a sense that the shifts in perspective have as much to do with the clarity of each man’s perception of events as one sensing the other’s need for a brief respite from the telling of them.

It’s not all perfectly plain to him—he’s still not sure what a ‘Tesham Mutna’ is, exactly—but he has the gist of it by the time the meal concludes. Ultimately it’s a deeply sad tale, especially when considered from Regis’s perspective. Geralt even seemed affected by the recounting of some portions of it. By no means a typical contract, even for a veteran monster hunter.

“And this all happened… when?” Dandelion asks, popping the last morsel of venison into his mouth. 

“About a week before Lammas,” says Regis, gathering plates.

A month and a half ago, he notes—it’s quite a lot to have happened in so short a span.

“So, you fought a veritable army of vampires, both higher and lower, thereby saving Toussaint from certain ruin. Now you’re traveling to Nilfgaard city together. Geralt has a new haircut, and Regis has a new herbal perfume.”

Regis’s voice is no more than a murmur under his breath as he passes Geralt: “See? _He_ noticed it.”

“I noticed,” Geralt hisses back. “I just didn’t know I was supposed to _say_ anything.”

Biting down on a smile and pretending not to have heard the exchange, Dandelion sits back down after their quick tidying of the campsite.

He hadn’t been sure—upon realizing that he’d be the odd man out, so to speak—that being in the vicinity of so much romantic energy wouldn’t put him in a foul mood, given the status of his own love life.

But as the night air cools, he finds his heart warmed by the food, by the fire, and by the kindness of his friends. A pleasant haziness begins to envelop him—an effect of the mandrake, no doubt—and he studies his compatriots as they rejoin him...

...watching with dismay as they leave a wide berth between them when they sit—like strangers in a pew at the Church of the Eternal Fire.

He squints at them through the flickering orange light before finally declaring, “There seems to be a glaring omission to this summary of events.”

“Think that about covers it,” Geralt says. 

Dandelion scoffs. Hard. “Come _on_.”

“What?”

“You’re not going to talk about… the two of you…” He makes a loop through the air with his hand, a vague gesture of tying something up. “...becoming an item?”

“No,” says Geralt flatly.

“ _Geralt_ ,” Dandelion protests. “I'm a man of the world and, more importantly, of the arts.” He places a hand over his heart, a vow of his sincerity. “If you think I'm not familiar with love in all its multitudinous forms…” He gives them the lascivious grin of a fellow conspirator. “You know, I myself once spent the night with a pair of extremely handsome—not to mention flexible—Koviri acrobats, who had the most _incredible_ —”

Geralt’s eyes fall shut, his voice muffled by the heel of his hand. “I don't want to hear this story. _Again_.”

(Regis, too, is covering his mouth. Dandelion gets the impression he may be snickering.)

Dandelion does something with his face that might be described by someone with a lesser command of the language as a pout.

“All right. But you at _least_ have to tell me how this happened. The cat has well and truly fled the proverbial bag.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to _talk_ about it,” Geralt grumbles, looking upward, as if seeking guidance from some— _any_ —god that might be listening.

“It absolutely does! You are two of my dearest, fondest friends, and now you’re telling me you’ve found happiness in one another? That doesn’t happen everyday.” The bard draws a sharp breath. “I'm not asking you to be... _crass_ about it,” he clarifies. “But I’ll go mad if I don’t know at least the broad strokes of the tale.” He frowns, holding one hand in the other, his humility as fully on display as he can manage. “I could use an uplifting story of the heart. Please?”

Geralt sighs, the vitriol in that breathy sound of a thickness he usually reserves for his disgust for portals.

But eventually he rolls his eyes, shakes the little white container beside him, and, finding it empty, stands, saying, “I’m getting another bottle.”

Regis watches him go, then turns to Dandelion and shrugs.

Which, he supposes, is the extent of the consent he is going to receive on the matter.

He claps his hands together excitedly, an artistic director in his element.

“So,” he begins, setting the scene. “You were in Toussaint. Investigating leads, talking to witnesses... Oh! Don’t tell me. It was a heartfelt confession in the midst of a great battle! Am I right?”

Regis starts to answer. Geralt, returning, breaks in, sullen as ever.

“No.”

“A love letter, then,” Dandelion guesses, indicating the vampire specifically, obviously the more willing of the two to talk. “I’m, of course, in awe of Regis’s linguistic mastery, both written and spoken.”

Regis flinches. “There were some letters, after a fashion, but that wasn’t… the catalyst for…” He trails off, eyes pulled into the darkness beyond the circle of the fire’s light.

Dandelion huffs, exasperated. “Well, tell me in your own words, then.”

The vampire and the witcher look at each other, engaging in some manner of silent negotiation.

Regis begins.

“We were having a drink, actually,” he says, raising his own glass, just as Geralt moves to refill it. “After we’d… After the contract had been completed.”

“And…” Dandelion attempts to draw him on.

He pauses, doing something with his tongue behind closed lips, his eyes darting away. Geralt answers for him.

“One thing led to another…”

“And...?”

“And…” The witcher shrugs. “That’s it, really.”

Dandelion stops. He looks to Regis for confirmation of this dull sequence of events. He shrugs again, still—somewhat uncharacteristically—saying nothing.

The poet glowers at them both.

“That,” he says, hiding none of his invective, “is a _terrible_ story.”

Geralt only chuckles. “Not everything is a story, Dandelion.”

Quite beyond his control, he can feel his lips twisting into an expression of his disgust. “Not when you tell it like _that_ , it isn’t. Well, don’t worry.” Reaching behind him, he pulls his lute smoothly from his shoulders; Geralt isn’t the only one who carries his weapon of choice on his back. “The sung version will be much, much more compelling.”

A wet choke erupts from Geralt’s throat mid sip. “ _What?_ ”

“Something upbeat, do you think?” Dandelion asks, tuning his instrument quickly by ear. “Or perhaps more melancholy in tone?

“Dandelion,” Regis says, gawping at him, “you can’t possibly mean—”

“Calm yourself, my friend,” the poet laughs. “Any lyricist worth his salt can weave a tale about a particular subject without giving away his true intent.” He winks. “Discretion has ever been my watchword.”

Geralt’s lips twist into something like a sneer. “ _The Wolven Storm_. Do you know how many times I’ve been asked about that?”

“That wasn’t mine—”

“ _The Stars Above the Path_.”

“Ah, yes, well—”

“ _The Cockatrice of Spalla_. _A Witcher’s Code_. _Golden Coin, Silver Sword_.”

“I may have tipped my hand in the past,” Dandelion concedes, “but this would be—”

“No more songs about me,” Geralt tells him emphatically. “And _certainly_ none about Regis.”

The bard takes in Regis’s expression. He looks… uneasy, as though he doesn’t wish to quash Dandelion’s exuberance, but still has considerable doubts about the project.

“Well,” Dandelion says at length. “Maybe an instrumental ode would be more appropriate.” He works through some scales; his fingers are moving a little slower than normal owing to the moonshine, but he’s still adept enough for anything short of songs in septuple time. “Anyone object to a tune?”

“Actually, before you begin…”

Regis stands, crossing to rifle through his packed belongings. He pulls out a rectangular wooden box of some sort. As he carries it back to the camp, Dandelion spots rows of little pegs protruding from one of the short sides.

It’s… an instrument of some kind?

“There’s something I’d dearly love to show you.” He takes a seat, arranging the object on his lap. “It’s a small project of mine, conceived of while bedridden, during the earlier stages of my regeneration. I thought you might find it interesting.”

Geralt looks as completely puzzled by the thing as Dandelion—maybe more so, in that he hadn’t known such an item was stored in their packs.

“What is that?” he asks.

“In truth, I don’t know its name,” Regis confesses. “But it’s a reconstruction of a traditional vampire instrument from a very old manuscript I’ve had in my possession for some time now.”

That origin would explain its non-traditional shape. Dandelion has seen some Ofieri and Hanni stringed instruments that are similar, but none with a resonating chamber so deep.

“It’s quite an unusual design. The body is… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“True. But I assure you that is far from its most unique feature.”

The strings’ silver shine catches Dandelion eye as Regis drags a finger across them.

The sound emitted is breathtaking, breaking the night with a cold fierce crispness, echoing on after itself for long seconds. It almost defies description; it’s unreal.

“Regis,” Dandelion breathes, awed. “Are those… some kind of _metal?_ How did you manage to craft those?”

“I’ve been corresponding with a metalsmith in Mettina for some time now, one Ewald Caedmon by name. Between discussion via letters and his annual trip to Toussaint, we began to puzzle out their construction. It took a fair amount of coin and patience, and a great deal of trial and error—with an emphasis on the latter—but we finally fabricated a version that met my specifications while Geralt and I were recently in the city.”

Looking to Geralt, Dandelion finds the witcher’s face slack in confusion.

Regis offers his paramour a half smile. “I told you I had some matters to attend to.”

“And you did mention a metalsmith,” Geralt says, low. Regis grins. Another private joke, apparently.

He ignores it altogether and holds out his hands, unable to resist temptation. “May I?”

Obligingly, Regis delivers him the instrument.

What he spies when he peers into the body of the thing engenders more questions than answers. Pulled taut through the interior are even more of those miraculous metal strings: a total of four more rows below the topmost one, six strings to a row. Appropriately, he can now see all— _great goddess_ —thirty tuning pegs on one of the side panels.

“How do you—?” he sputters. “What is the purpose of the rows of—? And why _metal_ , of all things?”

Regis gently takes the instrument back from him. “I think a practical demonstration is in order.” Returning to his seat, he settles it on his lap and raises his right hand. “Forgive any dissonance, it could probably stand to be tuned.”

Perhaps he’s slightly befuddled by moonshine, but Dandelion can’t withhold a gasp when Regis flicks his wrist, and long claws appear on the tips of his fingers, each at least six inches in length.

Before he can say a word, Regis slips his talons gracefully inside the instrument and plucks a chord—or rather, five _simultaneous_ chords—every string singing in perfect harmony with its brethren. As the notes ring out, he retracts his hand and gently slides his claws along the top row of strings, causing the sound to transform into a lingering, mournful wail.

“Oh, _Regis_ ,” Dandelion sighs as the notes die away, the night achingly quiet in the absence of that ethereal euphony.

The barber-surgeon turned instrumentalist beams. “It was quite worth the considerable effort, in my opinion.”

“The ‘why’ behind the strings is clear enough now, but I still don’t understand the ‘how.’” Dandelion taps the body of his lute thoughtfully. “What in the world are they made of?”

Regis runs the pads of his fingers softly over the topmost strings. “Not in the world—from another. An extraordinary element of which there is only an infinitesimal amount on this sphere. What little I had acquired was, for decades, in a form that was extremely dear to me. And then several years passed where it was not in my possession at all. It only returned to me… well, just over a month ago.”

Geralt, breaking from his state of silent observation, looks almost stricken, like it’s taking all his restraint not to reach out to his beau. He glances to Regis’s hands, then back to his face. “Your ring.”

When Regis smiles again, there’s something haunted about it, not unlike the cry drawn from the instrument he holds.

“It is an important—dare I say necessary—reminder that not all change is equivalent to loss, though loss almost always necessitates change.”

An air of grief suddenly descends on their camp; even with no further explanation, Dandelion is almost certain it’s to do with what happened in Toussaint. Best to change the subject, then.

“What are you going to play for us?” he asks brightly.

“What?” Regis balks. “Oh no, I couldn’t—not yet—my skill level is atrocious—”

Dandelion prepares to embark into a series of coaxing compliments, only to find he doesn’t need them.

“Please,” Geralt says quietly, this time extending a hand in Regis’s direction. “I’d love to hear.”

The points of Regis’s teeth dig into his lower lip.

“Well. Perhaps. Something _adagio_ , or _largo_ , even,” he says, sounding uncertain. “In four-four. With plenty of room for error.”

He smiles, and Geralt and Dandelion smile back at him.

* * *

The tuning, as one might expect, takes a bit longer than it would for other instruments. But it ends up being entirely worth the wait.

They play, and it’s breathtaking.

While it’s clear that Regis is very much a novice with this instrument of his own heritage (which Dandelion silently ponders a name for: a vampire zither? A _vither?_ Perhaps not. That sounds like something Geralt might obtain a contract on), it’s also clear that he’s entirely aware of it, and doesn’t push himself into speedy passages or tricky techniques. He merely plucks slow, resonant chords here and there, complimenting Dandelion’s melodies, and lets the deep, otherworldly sound of them stand on their own. The sparse, halting nature of his accompaniment sounds not only natural, but exceedingly pleasant.

Not to mention, Dandelion finds it quite charming to see Regis, a true master of so many disciplines, proceeding with so much hesitance for once, the energy of nervousness rippling off of him.

And even more endearing still is watching Geralt watch him, arms folded over his chest, the corner of his mouth quirking up almost imperceptibly, a quietly intense pride reflected in his eyes.

After the first song, Geralt shifts from his place on the stump to the nearby log, perhaps a foot away from where Regis is sitting. “I liked that. A lot. Maybe another?”

Regis makes a face that, were he human, might be accompanied by a blush.

“As you wish,” he nods first at Geralt, then at the bard.

Dandelion taps out a tempo, and they improvise.

The song dips into a minor key, and the tone immediately changes, the sadness of the piece only augmented by the keening of the argent strings. Dandelion catches Regis’s eye, and the vampire takes his meaning, placing even greater emphasis on the slide playing of the notes.

It’s not at all where Dandelion expected the tune to go, but one can’t always guide one’s muse, and they both follow the progression, the music giving off an almost reverential, sepulchral air.

When they finish, it’s Geralt who moves first.

“For Cahir,” he says, pouring a little of his mandrake out onto the dry earth.

Dandelion takes up his cup and follows suit. “For Milva.”

“For Angoulême,” Regis adds, tipping his own mug.

They drink in silence.

* * *

Dandelion plays a few more solo songs, bringing both the tempo and the mood back up, until finally his reaction time begins to go, hands slowing as though they’re moving through molasses. He sets his lute aside, and when he reaches to refill his glass yet again, he finds the bottle empty.

Rocking slightly as he sits back up, he looks to Regis for counsel.

Regis doesn’t hesitate to head toward their packs again, but does mention that what he’s retrieved is the last bottle remaining.

Dandelion frowns slightly. “If you’d rather not—”

“Not at all!” the vampire reassures him, serving him another small tipple. “We are together tonight, which in and of itself is quite miraculous. I’ll simply have to devise another gift for your opening night performance. In the meantime, I am all for availing ourselves of more moonshine in the moonshine.”

 _Moonshine in the moonshine_. Heh. That’s pretty good. He’ll have to remember that.

He hopes he remembers _anything_ tomorrow. Trying to keep pace with a witcher and a vampire is likely a terrible idea, quite apart from the fact that this is the second time he’s gotten tipsy today.

He blinks, stifling a yawn, then knocks back another gulp of mandrake.

“Gentlemen, we need to rally,” he says urgently. “I suggest we play… Th’ Way of Truth!”

“Ugh,” Geralt groans. “Noooo.”

Dandelion _tsks_. “Stop being such a… a fuddy duddy.”

The witcher is having none of it. He points an accusing finger at the poet. “You just wanna make us answer questions so you can put it in your songs.” Even _his_ cat’s eyes are looking slightly unfocused.

“Can’t I just be interested in Regis’s culture?” Dandelion shoots back, gesturing with a floppy wrist at Regis, the only one of them who still seems almost completely sober.

“Look,” Geralt slurs. “You can ask Regis all the vampire questions you want. And he’s either not going to say a _thing_ ,” he looks to the man on his left with a playful indignance, “or he’ll tell you the truth. But we don’t need a game, because he’s not gonna _lie_.”

Regis shifts, narrowing his eyes, lips pursing in an expression of challenge. “What makes you so sure of that?”

Geralt pauses, then shrugs.

“Because you’re _you_. And sometimes you do that… thing you do. Being evasive.” He bristles slightly, as if shrugging off a memory. “But you don’t lie. And besides,” he grins, “the truth is always, always longer.”

Regis laughs. “Touché.” He addresses Dandelion again. “What had you in mind, hmm?”

It’s like the whole of vampiric culture has suddenly been put on display before him. He doesn’t know where to start.

“How do you do that… mist… thing? Or disappearing, or… _any_ of that?”

“Mmmm,” Regis hedges. “Well. All right.”

Dandelion is… shocked, actually. Even Geralt, who’d been waiting on his response with raised eyebrows, leans back a little, settling in to listen.

Regis swirls his mug absently, gathering his thoughts.

“Humans—all creatures from your homeworld, for that matter—are bound by constraints of the flesh, whereas vampires are, at heart, creatures of energy. Physical form is far more malleable for us; our hard limitation is an expenditure of vitality. It’s hard to be more precise than that, given that both human medical tools and more magical means of assessment frequently fail altogether when used on us. But there are... folk customs, sayings, tribal knowledge I can attempt to share.

“The true form and the mist form, followed almost immediately by the human form, are the traditional trinity of shapes known to young vampires. The first two are nearly instinctive. The look of the last comes, I suspect, from a mix of nature and nurture: genetics and mimicry of one’s parents.

“That said, we can alter them, to a certain extent and for a certain amount of time. Variants on a theme.” He makes a graceful movement through the air with his hand and, much like earlier in the evening, during his playing, claws appear briefly on his fingertips and disappear again instantaneously. “Even more unusual states are not outside our grasp. Bats, for example, are very common, likely an effect of shared heritage with our cousin the katakan.”

Dandelion puzzles this information over. “Then what prevents you from imitating, say, me? Like a doppler?” His brows shoot up. “ _Can_ you?”

“First of all, Dandelion,” Regis smiles dashingly, “you are inimitable.

“Secondly, the transformation itself is difficult. When you learned to play the lute, I imagine you had to work slowly, teaching your body the movements. Our shifting is not radically different in that respect. The particulars of each shape we create with repetition, like a stream carving a path through a mountain. It would take me years, perhaps centuries, to accurately become you outwardly. And while I do have the time… Forgive me, my friend, but I do not have a strong inclination to follow that pursuit.

“Not to say that some aren’t naturally gifted; I have met vampires who can create disguises effortlessly by changing hair or eye color, or giving themselves scars or deformities at the drop of a hat. Dettlaff, for example, was a remarkable talent in that aspect.” He chuckles softly to himself. “Which I always found rather ironic, given that I’ve never known anyone—of _any_ species—as comfortable in their own skin as he was. He had very little occasion to use it. Although, he did have quite a beautiful black wolf form that—oh.”

Regis stops abruptly, giving Geralt a rather troubled look.

But the witcher just nods, gesturing with the hand holding his mug.

“You were saying?” he encourages. “Wolf form?”

“Well…” Regis looks cautiously pleased. “It was quite impressive. And did a marvelous job keeping passersby away from our dwelling, that much is certain.

“But regardless of skill level, at the end of the day, we must account for our changes. Simply put, there is a cost. There is _always_ a cost. And we must be prepared to pay.”

Geralt bobs his head in thought. “And this energy comes from… food? Rest? Like humans?”

“Yes. And... other sources.”

“Oh, don’t tell me!” Dandelion exclaims. “The moon! The full moon!”

Regis grins. “Indeed. While not a source of power per se, the barometric pressure change seems to have a favorable effect on our tissue’s energy consumption rate, making shifts more efficient. Large scale changes—like the aforementioned bat forms—are highly inadvisable outside of such conditions.”

“Anything else?” Geralt asks. “It sounded like there were more you were hinting at.”

Regis stills.

“Well,” he says, suddenly grave. “If you hadn’t guessed it... blood.”

Dandelion stops breathing. Even Geralt looks shocked at this admission.

“You said you didn’t need—”

“And I _don’t_ ,” Regis cuts in, unmistakably fierce. “‘Need’ is a _wholly_ inaccurate description. But… there is arguably some advantage to its consumption in moderation.” He releases a long ponderous sigh. “It is—as usual—difficult to explain. Which is why I usually don’t try.

“With regard to human physiology, any overlap between a medicament and a narcotic would be unthinkable. It is not so clear cut in our case. You see, your blood… _changes…_ our blood. On a chemical level. And there is some indication that it may provide some benefit in the form of health and longevity when imbibed. But—as I explained before—that, too, comes with a cost. A very dear one that I in particular cannot afford.”

Geralt looks flummoxed. “Longevity? What can that even mean to a vampire?”

“What it means to anyone else, I suppose: a substantial increase of lifespan,” Regis says calmly. “An additional few hundred years, perhaps.”

“ _Regis_.” The witcher stares at him, wide-eyed. “Kreve almighty.” He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again. “You never told me,” he finishes.

“It’s unimportant.”

Geralt scowls. “Your _life_ is unimportant?”

Regis places a hand on Geralt’s knee.

“I told you once that life is not a matter of simple accounting, and while I was speaking in more emotional terms then, the adage applies here as well. Extending my existence is not a concept I’ve spent considerable time examining. I tend to focus more on ways I can enjoy what I have.”

The nod Geralt gives him is a reluctant one; he averts his eyes.

The same way their earlier song shifted to a minor key, Dandelion can sense the conversation moving to a place he can’t follow, so he leans into the freedom of his drunkenness, inserting himself and his annoying questions right into the thick of things.

“All right. After all these lessons you’ve given us, I have to know: what vampire truth do you wish was a myth? Or! Or... what myth do you wish was true?”

At first, Regis looks pleased at this line of questioning, as does Geralt.

“I’m going to guess it’d be a shadow,” the latter proposes, seemingly happy for a distraction.

“Ah, but he’s a barber!” Dandelion jumps back in, inspired. “It’s odd for him not to have any mirrors about, isn’t it?”

“True. And there are always horses and dogs to consider.”

“What d’you think, Regis?” Dandelion smiles at him. “How’re our guesses?”

When the bard regards him again, all joviality has run away from his face. “Your game… It requires absolute truth?”

“Oh—I suppose—well, we’re not... strictly playing, after all—”

But the vampire answers his question with no further prompting, his gaze turned to the dimming light of the fire.

"Turning," he says softly.

Dandelion has no idea what that means. “What, like... shapeshifting? Doing it more easily, or—”

Regis bears himself up, lifting his chin and looking Dandelion the eye once more. His smile has a slightly hard edge to it, like he’s attempting to borrow a little of his lover’s famous stoicism.

“The ability to turn a human into a vampire,” he says.

For a moment, the only perceptible sound is the wind whipping through campsite, and Roach’s soft whinny.

“It's certainly for the best that it’s impossible, though,” Regis adds, the words tripping out quickly as he tries to regain some cheerfulness. “The sheer number of poor decisions I'd have made in my younger years is enough to—”

He’s stopped by a hand cupping his jaw as Geralt leans in and kisses him full on the mouth.

It’s incredibly sweet, Dandelion thinks as he pretends to take another sip, half looking away and half tracking their quiet movement in the warm light of the fire out of the corner of his eye.

Rather than feeling any jealousy at their closeness, he’s buoyed by their love—and it is very much love; Dandelion is, after all, an authority on the subject—and makes no move to shorten their long overdue expression of affection.

“Any other questions?” Geralt says wryly, and when Dandelion looks back at them, the witcher is moving to sit on the forest floor, nestling himself in the space between Regis’s legs.

Which is also incredibly sweet—but moreover, incredibly funny, as it’s impossible to miss the daggers Geralt is staring back at him; the implication— _are you happy now?_ —is violently clear, and Dandelion's not sure he's ever seen a movement of absolute tenderness performed with such seething vehemence before.

He nearly laughs aloud, because, yes, in fact, he _is_ happy now.

“Plenty,” he says smugly. “But I can see I’ve quite overstayed my welcome.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Dandelion stands, his legs shaking throughout the ascent. “You two are… obviously in need of some time alone. So, friends, I bid you—” he hiccups— “...adieu…”

He takes one step—and promptly falls to the ground.

There’s a hiss of mist, and Regis is standing over him less than a second later, his face expressing some distress. He’s followed immediately by Geralt, who looks… less concerned, but bends to offer him a hand nonetheless.

“You,” he says assertively, “are not going anywhere tonight.”

“But...you have… Regis… and I have to go see… Regina…”

Dandelion manages to clasp Geralt’s hand after two attempts, but as he begins to pull himself up, there’s a painful rushing, swirling sensation in his brain, and the treetops crowning his friends’ heads between to twist and spin.

He releases Geralt’s hand, shutting his eyes and meditating on how nice a place the ground is—much nicer than you would think to look at it. Maybe he’ll just rest here a minute...

“Don’t know how to tell you this.” He hears the witcher speaking, his deep voice rough in Dandelion’s ear. “But I’m pretty sure no one is getting laid tonight.”

* * *

“Ohhhhh, _gods_. _Haaaaah_.”

It is not, Ciri thinks, so very different from any number of fighting techniques she learned from her time at Kaer Morhen.

At moments, precision is most appropriate—

—the pink of her tongue seeks, languidly teasing along the way, before she works her way back up to the goal: the swollen little nub set in the center of deliciously glistening folds and dark curly hair—

—and at others, caution can be abandoned in favor of a full on assault.

“Ahhh,” Runa hisses, arching up off the ground, “Fuckfuckfuckfuck _fuck_ —”

Ciri doesn’t pause, just keeps working away—brutally, messily, adoringly—and smiles while she does it.

She loves this part—the tension, the build, every muscle in Runa’s body going as taut as a readied trebuchet, and yet, at the same time, the whole of her becoming softer than she ever lets herself be in their day to day.

A scrabble of movement catches in her peripheral vision: Runa tearing at her shirt buttons. Without hesitation, without even thinking, Ciri shoots an arm up, begins yanking at the cloth herself.

The fastenings give way and Ciri wastes no time, feeling the edge of the light undergarment below, slipping her fingers beneath it shoving that away as well. The delicious peaked curve of Runa’s breast pops free; Ciri snatches up her nipple between greedy fingers, tugging hard.

Runa squeals and rocks her hips up, demanding more, and Ciri follows the movement, increasing her tempo in time with Runa’s desperate breaths.

They hover there like that, on the edge, Ciri working fiercely and enjoying every second of it, trying different thrusts, sweeps, and even something rather like a pirouette, while Runa’s cries ring into a higher register, as she begs sweetly—helplessly—for release.

“Hah, hah, hah, _please_ , Ciri, _please—_ ”

She smiles again, and, with one final flick of her tongue, locks her lips over Runa’s clit, engulfing her completely. Bringing her free hand up, she slips two fingers inside and _curls_ —

Runa comes with a shout, jerking hard against her, and, gods, it’s glorious: Ciri rides the waves of pleasure that hit her, closing her eyes and not letting go for a moment.

She’s been to other worlds before, so she can state it with some surety: this is the center of the universe, and she’s thrilled at every trip she’s fortunate enough to make here.

Runa finally stills beneath her, and Ciri, nearly as winded as her girlfriend, slips her hand free and sets her head into the soft swell of Runa’s thigh.

Eventually, Runa brings her head up, and Ciri watches the flawless arcs of her cheeks, her forehead, the whole of her face, rise above the plane of her body like the sun over the mountains.

“You break me to pieces, witcher,” she pants, tossing her bright red plaits back over her shoulder. “How do you do that? You pull me _right_ apart.”

Brown eyes, nearly dark enough to be black, are focused entirely on her; warmth flares in her cheeks, and she twists her head pressing her face into the soft flesh of Runa’s thigh.

She feels Runa’s body jerk slightly as she laughs. “You bloody well like that, don’t you? Still not used to it?”

It’s been three years since the Hunt. Three years since she declared herself dead in the eyes of the Empire and set off with Geralt to train not as an adept, but as an apprentice.

And eight months since she left Geralt in Carreras to strike out on her own, leaving only a note behind her. (It still smarts to think of that. Not her most thoughtful decision, perhaps, but it felt extremely necessary at the time—proving to herself that, mutations or no, she was a witcher after all.)

She presses a kiss into Runa’s thigh before sitting up.

“Suppose not,” she admits.

“Hmm,” Runa muses, skeptical as ever, fixing her shirt and slipping her breeches back on. “It’s a sight better than ‘Witcher _Girl_ ,’ at any rate.”

Ciri chuckles. That’s probably true; she’s much more than a girl now—as is patently clear from her current situation.

She really doesn’t understand Runa’s reluctance to use the word for herself—‘witcher,’ that is. Whatever her upbringing—a subject she’s remained steadfastly quiet about—she’s clearly a monster hunter through and through. One of best Ciri’s ever seen outside of the School of the Wolf, for that matter. She doesn’t see why it should matter whether Runa was apprenticed or self taught. She’s always taken pride in the title herself; oddly, it almost seems as though Runa’s a bit unimpressed by it.

But Ciri doesn’t push. She knows a good thing when she sees one—or at least, she _thinks_ she does.

Their rapport had been instantaneous—from their first days together, it was all too easy to work together, travel together, sleep together—and there’s a power in their closeness that a difference of opinion over a few words can’t tear asunder. (After all, for all appearances, Geralt and Yennefer agree on almost nothing, and they’re _perfect_ together.)

Ciri fastens her own shirt front, a dark lock of hair falling in front of her eyes as she does so. That’s something she’s not used to either: her change in appearance.

It had been a snap decision in Sodden, made the day before they decided to head south. Rumors of an ashen-haired witcheress began circulating as soon as she’d completed that first solo contract in Angren. That might be innocuous enough in certain parts of the North, but in Nilfgaard, Emhyr would have ears and eyes everywhere. Perhaps it was silly to think altering something as superficial as her hair would matter much; trading the appearance of a grey haired female witcher for two with tresses of black and red was likely senseless. But it had to be better than doing nothing.

“That girl from the village,” Ciri says, sweeping her unruly raven hair back and tying it off. “She was a bit like me when I was younger.”

“Oh?” Runa crooks a brow at her, intrigued. “Did you go around telling stories to strangers, kitten?”

She smiles at that; the day they met, Runa’d taken one look at her medallion and given her the nickname, occasionally going so far as to call her a ‘kitten without cat’s eyes.’

It had sounded odd to her ears at first—to most, she’d always been just Ciri, Cirilla, or—she can’t help but think the name in that too deep voice— _Zireael_. (She’s tried to forget her time as Falka almost in its entirety—some days with more success than others.)

But the pet name sounded sweet and teasing falling from Runa’s pretty lips, and Ciri found herself wanting it more and more: to cast away a lifetime of being a bird and to become instead the thing that devours them.

And right now, it’s all the more appropriate, as it puts her in mind of a tale about a particular feline, and its race up a particular tree.

“No,” she tells Runa happily, “I wanted them told to me.”

(She doesn’t add that that description isn’t exactly fitting for what Geralt was to her. True, she’d only just met him hours before. But he wasn’t a stranger. Not ever, not even for a moment.)

Runa laughs at her again as she pulls their nightly ration of hard cheeses and dried meats from their packs. She shakes her head, her affection for Ciri obvious, but the motion is seemingly laiden with confusing as well, like she can’t quite imagine a childhood filled with laughter and games and stories.

Perhaps it’s too much to ask, and too soon, but Ciri wishes Runa would give her just a hint of what her life had been like when she was younger. Was her family taken from her during some war? Had she grown up alone? Or in a gang? What’s behind that cold stillness that washes over her when she thinks Ciri isn’t watching?

It’s clear there’s pain in her past. But it’s not as though Ciri’s early life had been a sunshine-filled walk in a royal garden.

 _Tell me,_ Ciri thinks. _I would understand. Maybe it would help to say it to someone after all this time._

But, growing up around Geralt, Ciri truly does understand that sort of reticence, especially when it comes to facing one’s emotions. She’s even picked up some of that too stubborn detachment herself over the years. She can’t simply rush headlong the topic; maybe she can approach it another way.

She takes the food Runa offers her, picking at it slowly.

“I was nearly a dryad when I was little,” she says, wistful. “Have I told you that story? I’d run away from home—from my station, really. And from the boy they’d wanted me to marry. And I ran smack into Geralt.”

She tells it all in full: the myriapod, the Water of Brokilon, the attack by the bandits and their rescue by Braenn. Runa listens attentively to Ciri’s reminiscences as they eat, but says nothing, and offers nothing of her own life in return.

They finish, and Ciri wipes her hands unceremoniously on her trousers, then scoots a little closer to her lover, setting her shoulder against Runa’s, something between a nudge and a cuddle.

“Was there... anything you nearly were? When you were little?” she asks hopefully.

Runa takes a deep breath, her eyes downcast.

When she speaks, there’s a hollowness to her voice.

“Dead,” she says.

Ciri swallows. “I’m sorry.” She bites her lip. “I suppose I was nearly that, too. A few times.”

Fearing she’s pushed too hard, she racks her brain, trying think of a way to recover, when Runa’s hand closes over hers.

“Those are stories that don’t get sweeter with the telling, love.” She offers Ciri a tired little smile. “So, what’s your dad gonna think of me, eh?”

It’s funny that Runa always uses that word in reference to Geralt: dad. Ciri’s used it precious few times herself. She can’t say why, exactly. Perhaps it’s just never been enough to describe what he meant—what he means—to her.

“Surprised it matters to you,” she snorts.

Runa shrugs. “It doesn’t, exactly. But it does to you. And I’m curious what he’s like.”

Ciri considers how to say it concisely, how to capture their connection without describing everything in between pick-a-back rides and their journey to Bald Mountain.

“He’s… he’s the best man I’ve ever known,” she says simply. “And he’ll like you as much as he likes anyone. Which is probably not a lot at first, but a great deal more once he’s fought alongside you once or twice.”

Runa nods a few times, mulling over her answer.

“Sounds all right, actually. For a man.” She smirks. “And a witcher.”

Ciri scowls. “Watch. Your. Mouth. _Freelancer_.”

“Can do more than that with it,” Runa says, and pulls her into a kiss.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have gotten dressed so quickly.

* * *

“Are you sure about this?” Regis asks.

Dandelion squints in the morning sunlight. His head feels like it’s both three times bigger than it ought to be and is also full of rocks.

He’d noticed, as Regis was leading him back in the direction of Altrier, that the vampire actually allowed him to lean rather heavily on his proffered arm, and said nothing untoward about how slow they were going. Bless the man. He is a true friend.

(Also, Dandelion can’t help but think that Regis has more than likely experienced these same after effects in his own past.)

They’re a few hundred yards from the main road leading to the village, their position still concealed by greenery. All that’s left to do is for Dandelion to return triumphantly with a story about his defeat of the wisp, and he can sleep the rest of the day away in a fine bed. Regina… well, he’ll concern himself with her later.

“Yes,” he nods, grimacing. “I’m sure.”

Regis sighs, then draws up Dandelion’s cravat in one hand, and slashes it with his claws from the other, leaving the ends shredded. He takes in his handiwork, nodding.

“Sword?”

Dandelion holds the blade upright between them, and as Regis wraps his palm around it, sliding it down along the cutting edge, he finds it’s he, and not the vampire, who winces.

“There we are,” Regis tells him matter-of-factly. “Genuine vampire blood. It should serve to make your story all the more compelling.” He shakes his hand at the wrist, and Dandelion notices that the wound has just about disappeared. “Now all that’s left to do is hope that the real wisp doesn’t return before you depart.”

“Could be the first one’s mate,” Dandelion tells him with an air of faux authority, rubbing a bit of dirt on his elbows and knees. “You have to know these things when you’re a witcher.”

Regis laughs. “Are you sure you won’t travel with us to the capital?”

“Ah, no. I can tell Geralt wouldn’t brook my presence for long, and I can’t say I blame him. It’s early days for you two yet; you deserve a little time to yourselves. And I’ll see you soon enough at the premiere. Although,” Dandelion frowns, “he’s going to have to shave that beard before you arrive, lest he be mistaken for a highwayman—or worse. It used to be he couldn’t tolerate a scruffy chin.”

Regis chuckles again, as though he’s had similar thoughts himself. “Geralt’s not exactly a champion of Nilfgaardian culture; I’ve got a working theory that he’s very much intending to present himself as the perfect specimen of a barbarous Nordling. But I’ll work on him.” He sighs, a hint of melancholy overtaking his expression. “He’s only here because of me, you see.”

“And I can’t think of a better reason for him to be here.” Dandelion claps a hand on Regis’s shoulder. “I’m thrilled for you both. He needs someone looking after him, and I suspect you’re one of the few people he’ll actually allow to do it.”

“That remains to be seen,” Regis smiles, and pulls him in for a final embrace. “Safe travels, Dandelion.”

“And to you, my friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he says, giving Regis a bow that has more than a little dramatic flourish—and regretting it the instant his head begins to throb harder, “I have a date… with a rather gorgeous pillow.”

He turns and runs in the direction of the Three Griffins, yelling Delwen’s name breathlessly.

* * *

Delwen, true to his word, offered up the room with no resistance, along with a celebratory pint to boot.

Therefore, Dandelion should be fast asleep, or at the very least, downstairs in the tavern getting acquainted with the hair of the dog that bit him.

But, hunched over the small desk in his quarters as he is now, he finds he can do neither.

His date with either his bed or Regina—or both—might be able to wait, but his muse is capricious, and when she pulls at him, her call is the one thing he can’t ignore.

He’s had an idea.

Scenes from the previous evening play over and over again in his head: the unprecedented glimpse into vampire heritage and culture, Regis’s ruminations on loss and transformation, the haunting sound of that _vither_ —for lack of a better term—and the way Geralt looked at him when he played it.

Dandelion can’t let it go.

He began scratching out a stanza or two of lyrics, just so he wouldn’t forget them, followed by a couple measures of a melody. Then _that_ turned into notes on how to recreate the sound of the vampire instrument with a sextet of conventional lutes, all using his new tempering method. Which led to his coming up with several more leitmotifs, each corresponding to one of the main characters.

He’s scribbling out yet another verse of the Act One closer now, sketching in the words over the counterpoint phrases, grinning maniacally all the while: he knows exactly what it sounds like, the turns of it, how it rises and falls...

True, Geralt said no more songs about him. But it’s rapidly becoming clear that this is so much _more_ than a song.

His friend—or friends, for that matter, for it of course involves Regis as well—will simply have to see reason. They must. This will be brilliant, moving, important. This is _art_ , and art waits for no man—or vampire.

Besides, it’s a testament to their relationship, and just how much it’s inspired him. It demands to be preserved for the ages.

He’s only ever done this once before, this sort of snap composition, sitting by the dying light of a fire, carried away on emotion invoked by what he’d seen.

And this time, he feels certain that he’ll share his creation with the world.

Regis may not have the ability to bestow immortality on a human.

But Dandelion does.

As delicious as the juxtaposition of monster hunter and monster is, the story cannot be about a witcher and a higher vampire; that much is certain. His subjects would tan his hide—or worse— and they’d be justified in doing so. But he hopes to keep something of the same feeling to the main pair.

The star-crossed lovers will be cast as a witch hunter—a flame-wielding foot soldier of the Church of the Eternal Fire—and a bruxa. She burns brighter than the torch he carries, and he loves her instantly.

Their love is ridiculed and spurned by both his friends and her clan, and of course, violence escalates. He is mortally wounded in her defense, but she ultimately proves the true heroine of the piece, using her powers to turn him into an immortal being himself. (That bit of misinformation not only suits his theme, but should curry some favor with the vampire community, he surmises.)

They live happily ever after—once they’ve participated in a triumphant group number, of course.

Dandelion smiles at the ever growing spread of parchment covering his desk.

 _It needs a title_ , he thinks, when he hears a knock at the door.

Hmmm… Regina?

As much as he should probably rest, perhaps he can rally to the occasion. It’s well known that certain types of… active relaxation can act as a restorative when one’s head is aching.

He opens the door, expecting to see his auburn haired lass.

But it’s her friend, the shy brunette, that stands before him.

Somehow, she doesn’t look at all shy now.

“You’re back from your little rendezvous,” she says sullenly. She sounds… confident. Bitter. Almost like a different person. She looks him up and down, clearly amused. “And a bit worse for the wear, I see.”

Dandelion squints at her tone. “Can I help you…?”

She pushes the door wide open with unexpected force, barging in.

“Not me, not directly. But my employer greatly desires your assistance.” She sighs, and gently pushes aside a handful of the papers on his desk, giving herself a place to lean. “For some reason.”

“What?” Dandelion sputters, enraged. “Your employer? What’s going on?”

She gestures, and the door slams shut of its own accord.

A sorceress. Oh, gods.

“And here Rideaux had me worrying that your previous experience as a spy might give you an edge.” She laughs. “You don’t even remember my name, do you?”

“If you don’t explain yourself immediately, I’ll—”

“Hush.” She flicks her fingers again, and Dandelion’s lips are suddenly sealed together, unable to move at all.

Reaching into the folds of her skirts, she pulls out a small cylindrical metal object and holds it up in the palm of her hand. Dandelion assumes it to be a music box, until she casts another incantation over it, causing a faint light to be emitted from within.

There’s a crackle of static as the xenovox activates. A distorted voice issues from the device. “Well?”

“Sir, he’s here,” she informs the person on the other end. “And I think he’s just seen the witcher, too. Should we move? They can’t have gone far.”

The connection must have stabilized, for the voice can now be heard as clearly as a bell; it’s resonant, commanding, possessing a tone of authority so complete, it sounds as though no one could refuse its owner anything it asked. A chill rolls up Dandelion’s spine in response.

“I suspect that would end exceptionally poorly for all involved,” it says coolly. “Especially considering what we have learned of the witcher’s companion. Let them reach the Triad at their own pace, along with the others; we will not spill blood needlessly, not when I’m certain they can be made to see reason. Let me speak with the bard.”

The sorceress makes a face of surprise, then holds the device out to Dandelion. As he takes it from her, she releases the silencing charm; he licks his lips in mixed fear and relief, staring down at the powerful little object.

“Yes?” he whispers, voice cracking slightly.

He’s only seen one or two other xenovoces in his life before, and each was different, bearing some manner of seal relating to its owner on the face of it.

This one is adorned with a Nilfgaardian sun wrought in solid gold.

And it suddenly becomes clear to Dandelion why it is he’d never heard of his mysterious patron before. Why the rehearsal space he’s been offered is so close to the royal palace. And why the commission had been carried out with such secrecy.

“Master Dandelion, how pleasant to finally converse with you directly. I must admit, I am rather looking forward to the debut of my commissioned work from you. But presently, I have another task for you.”

“Of course.” Dandelion swallows. “Your Majesty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's be real as hell here for a second: when it comes to Nilfgaardian lore, I have tried to go back to the source as much as possible, but I'm gonna own the fact that there is stuff where I no longer know if it's canon or it's Astolat, so if it seems some small bit is a nod to one of [Astolat's excellent Witcher works](https://archiveofourown.org/series/621487), you're probably right.


End file.
